Saga - Legends Green and Orange (Take Two)

Prologue:

In the past two years, Admiral Herto Green, had barely spent more than a week in a single apartment. The small apartment on the top of the “luxury sweets” provided by the Republic, for it’s high ranking officers, was where he was currently cooped up. The tall, lean man was still wearing his Navy Green Officer's uniform, as if ready for duty at any moment, which was good, by his standards.
The small apartment only had two rooms, the main room, and a bedroom, unless you counted the measly bathroom. The main room was lightly decorated, as he did not want to keep much in his Coruscanti home, rather he preferred to keep the mass of his belongings on his home planet of Alderaan. All it was, was an unnecessarily large holo table in the center of the room, with a wooden chair in front of it, created from the trees of Kashyyyk, and a stark white couch that provided little comfort, and he relied on his guests to sit on it.
The small kitchen area was just a small countertop, with a safe and twin metal cabinets hanging over the small stove. The Cabinets had a crude attempt at a paint job, trying to look like wood as well, but the turned more like a slimy brown, as if a slug creature had slithered across the outer shell of them, and had been doing this every day since. On the other end of the room was the poor excuse for the bathroom, a pale wall, with sliding, lockable door. It looked relatively nice from the outside, but the inside was pure garbage.
The Bathroom itself, looked almost as if it was a last minute addition, with a microscopic toilet, and something that could barely pass itself as a sink, along with the walls, still the color of unpainted metal, which it was. The only reason the admiral had accepted the apartment in the first place was because, along one of the four main walls, the outermost, was a window, that covered the whole wall.
The view was fabulous, and no matter the time of day, the room would always be bright with the lights of the outside. All around his building were buildings similar to the one he himself was standing in, but his was the one raised the highest.
He stood, staring out the window, at all the seemingly small airspeeders flying hundreds of feet below him, the occasional one flying little higher, when a light flashed in the corner of his eye. “The Holotable”, he mused to himself out loud.
He slowly stalked over to the large centerpiece of the room, and pressed the flashing blue button on the side of the large circle. Instantly a little blue figure saluting popped out of the center of the table. He was a Clone Officer, bearing the plain gray uniforms, another Admiral, higher up than most Naval Clones rise. In response, Green saluted back.
He was not required to do this, but he did so anyway. He always felt a strange empathy for the clones, since he himself had a similar situation. The Clone, “No, Man”, Green told himself, stared up at him.
“Please excuse me if I was interrupting something sir, but the command just sent your next assignment,” the Man gabbled.

“Well then, let’s get this over with, where am I going now?”
“Caderun Sir, the resistance from the locals after our forces took the planet is stronger than we expected, and they've taken back our main command center, the droids are back,” The Man said solemnly.
Green nodded,”Okay, so what does the senate want me to do?”
“Not the Senate sir, The Jedi Council themselves, they’ve read your recommendations, their sending one of their own members to help take back the planet. I believe you’ve worked him before. N’Kai Orden?”
Green smiled to himself. The Admiral had served alongside the Jedi in taking back Atollon. The General had a weird way of handling things, but he wasn’t alone, he had a whole company of Commandos, who had supposedly only once lost a mission. The siege of the Planet was short, even easy, in the words of the clones themselves. The attack barely lasted 2 hours, the Clones quickly Demolishing the droid outpost and taking over the capital city, or whatever you want to call the bigger city out of the only two of the planet.
Green turned back to the Admiral, “Yes, I have worked with him before.”
“Excellent, then you already know him, he’s taking the 49th Attack Battalion with him, so you might be seeing a lot of fire, between the ground and the blockade. Have your fleet ready and able to leave by tomorrow evening.” The Young Man saluted once again, and the little blue figure disappeared.
Green sighed, and leaned back into the Kashyyyk wood covering his back.

 

Chapter 1:

Rain poured down the Blaster Lit Helmet Visor of CC-1289, Lieutenant Tigereye, shielding his face from the rain, as he ran down the hill. His Soldiers fired shots towards the advancing enemy, an army of B1 Battle Droids, of which, alone where basically harmless, but in mass numbers, they could be deadly.
The Clones were taking any cover they could, defending their precious circle at the top of the hill. If they lost their circle, they lost their artillery. If they lost their artillery, they lost the battle. A day before, the battalion had come here with high hopes, fresh and rested troops, full ammunition, and a fleet of Star Destroyers. Now, the Destroyers were gone, the ammunition was almost dry, and all they had left was a quarter of the battalion, a handful of commandos, a few, barely operational AT-TEs and a hill to protect.
Tigereye slowly had his troops rise up the hill, firing the whole time. The troops were nearly running out of hill, backed up to the AT-TEs, the metal hot and seared from repeatedly being pelted by enemy blaster bolts. He silently signalled with his hands to two commandos, CC-8283, and CC-5263, Rash and Roost, originally from different squads, now the sole survivors of their group. The two nodded in understanding, being of the original members of his company.

The duo moved forward recklessly, faking an attempt to find cover, then pretended to be shot, went limp and rolled down the hill, somehow, aiming themselves perfectly so they both landed in front of the same mid sized rock. They would go unnoticed that way. After nearly ten minutes, the droids slowly marching up the hill, each and every few droids knocked down, even more came to take its place, Tigereye made the decision to use one of his most wild cards. Procedure F-27.
He activated his wrist comlink, yelling to be heard over the blaster fire, “F-27, F-27,” repeatedly, until one of the Tank drivers responded. The massive hulk of metal groaned as the legs started to turn on it’s six, huge legs, and move towards the edge of the hill, which was backed by a cliff.
As this all was happening, a Trooper started to sprint down the hill, his left arm hanging limp at his side, a visible charred hole in his left shoulder, with a commando blaster in his right hand. Tigereye did not recognize the Commando, but he still respected his decision and let him go, instead of trying to call him back, and besides, if he did, he either wouldn’t listen or be shot to death.
Apparently, the possibility of being shot, didn’t bother the Soldier, since he was barraged by lasers and almost hit straight by a cannon. Yet he still ran, slower, but he still did. Tigereye watched in amazement as he recognized the Trooper, CC-7890, one of his original members as well, named Prancer. Prancer, now mere yards from the droids, too a Detonator from his belt, threw his backpack right into the middle of the droids, pushed the only button on the trigger, and was shot through the heart.
The explosion shook the whole, hill, along with the droids line. The Clones defense line whooped. Tigereye smiled inside his helmet as he watched his brother give up everything, just to slow the droids down, if even for a moment.
He swiveled his head around, if even just for a moment, to see the second tank starting to climb over the edge of the cliff face. He turned back around and realized, that the droids we're now in range.
He activated his comlink and said now. All of the Clones fired harder, but for a moment, nothing really that big changed, but then, he saw two streaks of white flash from behind the droid lines. Then, one of the droid tanks turned and fired on another, demolishing it instantly, and swivelled to fire upon the third, now had a large, gaping hole, in it’s mid belly. Then it blew up. Tigereye stopped shooting, for just a second, enough to let out a whoop and waved his fist in the air, then turned his focus back to firing.
Rash and Roost had done it. He wasn’t sure they could, even with their skill. They had gone with a program that they had practiced numerous times before, but never had the chance to ever do in a live battlefield before. They had snuck behind a whole horde of battle droids and hijacked one of their own vehicles, which they assumed would be protected from behind the mass of forces, but they weren't. The Clones had used on of the Separatists greatest allies against them. The ability to destroy. The ability to Kill.
Over his comlink he heard Roost mutter, “The things you can do when you fake your own death.”
Tigereye smirked inside his helmeted head. He had feared the worst. The only gunship they had left was gone, it went to search for a missing scout party, which had included the Jedi. The ship had left right before the droid attack, and had not yet returned. The AT-TEs were almost completely out of commision, except the ones that had fled down the cliff, of which those were on their way back up.
As the remaining droids tried to flee down the mountain, the hijacked tank blasted down numbers of droids, while the Clones closed in on the droids heading towards the tank. Soon there were no more.

…​

After almost two hours of not hearing from the gunship, or the scouting party, Tigereye was officially in charge of the battalion, or what was left of it. “All right, we’re going to set up camp here, let the troops rest up, see what we can do to fix the walkers, and then we’ll get moving.”
The other men in the circle Tigereye had called nodded. The group consisted of The first Sergeant, Thunder, and the Best group medic, Narco. The three decided on moving to take the droid base. Then Roost came up, “Sir, we just got the casualty reports on.”
He handed Tigereye the reports, and Tigereye winced. He knew it was bad, but not horrible. The droids had lost hundreds, but so had the Clones, and after four days of in and out battles, their repeated strikes on the droids seemed meaningless, with their losses in account. They still had to take back the Command, and they had no reinforcements.
“It can’t be done,” Narco shook his head.
“For once, I don’t think we should fight any longer, we need to draw back,” Thunder added, “It really can't be accomplished.”
Tigereye shook his head, “It can be done, each and every clone we have is worth a hundred battle droids.”
“Not if every Clone is shot down before they can take those 100 droids,” Narco argued.
Tigereye was about to defend his point, say his company had never failed a mission, that they could pull this up, when Rash ran up.
“Sir, the found the Jedi, he's still alive, along with a few members of the scouting squad. They gunship found them, but was shot down by droids about a mile from here.The squad is there, giving them medical supplies, but they only have single person speeders, and they need someone to get them out of there.”
Tigereye pondered this for a moment, then nodded, “Rash, you're in charge until I get back. Roost, assemble a squad and some speeder bikes, we’re going to get em’.”
Rash and Roost both nodded and ran off to their separate duties. About five minutes later, Roost returned with a squad of four other troopers, Pluto, Redeg, Mick, and Tu. The six of them got on the BARC speeder bikes that Tigereye had been prepping. As they got on, Pluto’s engine failed, resulting in him riding on the back of Redeg’s bike. As the group started down the rocky slope, Rash ran behind them and started yelling.
Tigereye signaled for the group to stop. When Rash got down to them, he said,” They, the droids, they ambushed them, the scouting party, a patrol troop of droids!”
Tigereye nodded and started to move the speeder bike again, its grip feeling comfortable in his fingers. “What are you doing,” yelped Rash. He was an extremely capable fighter, but he was nerve racking and a little annoying even when he wasn’t in battle.
“Going to help,” and without letting him reply, he and the squad sped off.
After a short period of time, they heard blaster bolts whizzing, and a soft hum of energy. When they arrived at the seen, the blaster bolts had stopped firing, and there, surrounded by fire, stood a few clones in a defensive circle, along with, a tall, lean young man, with orange and green energy beams coming out of navy blue and silver sticks in his hands.

 

Hey, good work you've posted here. In the prologue you really captured the essence of being in a space but, not living in a space. Green didn't want to be there, and the descriptions given really show that.

This part especially, the cabinet that was trying to look like natural wood coming out looking like something vile. Much like the apartment around the Admiral. It's trying to be a home but, it isn't not his true home.

It at least had one redeeming feature. Though it is interesting that it's a window, something to see out of the cramped, and somewhat ugly area. The only good thing about the place is it's view of other places.

This part is also very well done, it's short but it says a lot. The Admiral has to remind himself that the Clone is a man, a living being first, an officer second and a Clone a distant third. Most likely something others in his position rarely think about.

This last part could be read in two different ways, one, he's musing about leaving this place, an apartment, he despises and into a place he feels more comfortable, in command, in space far away from his little hovel high about the city that stretches to the horizon.

The other is that, while his surroundings might be undesirable, they were still better than going back to a war that has dragged on for too long now. I'm curious as to his feels on his mission. Yes it was in service to the Republic but, as well he was going to crush a revolt, citizens of the Republic that had decided to turn against their government. Does he view them as traitors, or as misguided beings that require correction. Or is he just following orders, lots of depths to plum there.

You do a good job of setting the scene here,the Clones are outnumbered and in an untenable position being pushed back. You capture at once the hopeless nature of their situation, and their will to carry on.

This is a fine example of setting a Chekhov's gun. You make note of the commandos position and actions, then pull away from them. Letting them fade from the narrative.

This moment captures the sacrifice made by all the clones. CC-7890 represents all of his clone brothers. Born to die, and take out a few of the enemy with him. It's a heroic act that gives a much needed morale boost to the troops but, also it is not the moment the battle changes, it only buys them a moment.

You fire off your Chekhov's gun in a well crafted manner. You give the impression that all hope is lost that the battle is over but, the clones will fight to the last. Then as they are on the verge of collapsing, the Gun goes off.

Nice little quip here, very Clone like.

This is a good reminder that not all Clones think alike, they are not mindless wet droids that blindly follow orders, also, just because they won this engament didn't mean they won the campaign

This is a fine ciffhanger to keep me intrigued, introducing the Jedi but also putting him in danger, very much like the old serials,

"Will our hero's allies be enough to break the siege, can he hold out against the Separatists mechanical army, find out next time"


Keep going, tag me when you update it next, I'm interested in seeing where you take this.

 

Chapter 3:

As the Gunship's hull touched the ground, the soft hum of the engines quieted down. N’Kai Orden looked around him for the last time, the ground was scorched, and the air smelled of burnt metal. N’Kai looked at the area surrounding him, scorched, desolated, and littered with bodies, Clone, Human, and Droid alike. There was charred stumps were the village houses once were, now reduced to ash.
While on the Scouting Mission, they had uncovered the plans for the droids scorched earth campaign, and had tried to send a signal to the rest of the battalion, but the droids had jammed their transmission. The Villagers were already locked in combat with the droids when they arrived, but it was quite clear that the villagers did not stand a chance. N’Kai had then sent his clones in.
While the clones were busy demolishing the droids, he was tending to a young boy that had suffered a blaster bolt straight through the chest. N’Kai had seen the boy staggering down the streets while running along, slicing droids in half and straight down the middle. He had run straight towards the boy and nudged him, ever so slightly, with the force, and the boy slumped onto the ground.
N’Kai operated quickly, forcing whatever flesh still cling around the hole, back into its former position, than forced harder, and the holes started to reform itself. The Boy had lived. When the boy woke up, he was in a daze, but ran straight to a hut, presumably his home. By then the fire had started. There was nothing they could do now. The Villagers who were still alive started to flee, but the N’Kai and the Clones both knew there was no hope to stop the fire, and started directing villagers away from the flames.
The little boy had been in the hut as it burned. N’Kai twinged with regret. He could have done more, but he had ensured the boy a death with whatever family he had, instead of without, and he smiled slightly. What he had done was forbidden by the Jedi order, even if it saved lives. He was amazing at destroying lives, but even better at fixing them.
N’Kai climbed into the Gunship, even in the cramped interior, managed to take a headcount of all his troops. 17, which meant he lost three in that battle. Charmer’s bright Red armour was missing from the fray. That meant he was dead. N’Kai just shook his head
“When we get back to Coruscant, we are GOING to the bar,” he heard one in the back say aloud.
“To our lost brothers,” another one half whooped, and then, almost everyone let out a victory whoop.

As the gunship left the ground, N’Kai lurched as the engines reignited themselves. The ride was relatively silent, and after just a few minutes, when the pilot said over the intercom,” Red Light, approaching heavy fire zone, just a mile out.”
As if instinct, all the Clones latched one gloved hand to the hanging straps from the ceiling. Then N’Kai remembered, that was their instinct. He slowly reached his hand up, gripping the cord with his right hand. Then the whole ship rocked.
“Droids are firing at us, I guess they think we were trying to attack them right now,” the pilot stated,” Hold on.”
N’Kai watched numerous grips tighten. He heard the gunners fire rounds outside, the sound echoing through the entire hull, but could not see anything other than armoured helmets and flashing red lights. The whole ship lurched, and the pilot started almost yelling into the intercom now, “We were hit by a missile, I repeat hit by a-”
His voice was cut off by a shot outside and the ship tilted on it’s side, and then it’s nose started to face down. The whole hull tipped, and soon, it was facing straight down, spiraling. Many of the clones let go of their grips and fell to what was once the front wall, now refitted into the floor of the ship. One started trying to scramble back up.
N’Kai and a few other troopers maintained their grip, and it dawned on N’Kai how high they were flying, when metal screamed and a plume of fire rose up to his face.

...​

N’kai woke up on a stretcher, confused, and immediately tried to jump up, but cried out in pain. Narco ran over to him,” Sir, you're awake.”
“Yeah what happened?”
“Tigereye found you, only you and three of the squad you took with survived the crash.”

N’Kai leaned his head back, and closed his eyes, only three out of an original group of twenty. He almost cried at the thought of it, but sleep was trying to edge in on him. He shook his head as best he could and tried to open his eyes again, he found now, they would only open part way, and all he saw was a blur of white and red bodies running around him, and massive grey tanks surrounding them in a circle. He closed his eyes again, and this time, did not resist sleep.

 

Again a good battle scene very evocative you're very good at putting the visuals and feeling of a place in the reader's mind.

Like this, the hum of the engines, the sight of scorched earth, the smell of burnt metal, instantly we know this is a warzone, and one that isn't going well.

This part is what I feel is the emotional center of the piece. We see that N'Kai is willing to break the rules to save lives. However, he only buys the boy a few moments, seconds of life he uses to die with his family. It's painful, while the Jedi takes solance in the fact that he allowed the boy to perish with loved ones, I feel he might just be rationalizing his actions that are way out of line with the teachings of the council.

And here we see the contradiction, he is a Jedi, a being meant to preserve and protect life, and all he can do is watch it be destroyed before his eyes. Its as if everything this man touches turns to ash.

While not as powerful as previous scene it does show that he's a capable leader, reminding his troops of the home they have, and what they were fighting for. Again it shows that these commanders do not treat them as mindless fighting machines. They are beings that need a morale boost every now and again.

More of his life turning to ash, again it's very descriptive,you can feel the deck creaking beneath their feet, sense your weight shifting forward as the gunship takes a nose dive.

​

And finally we see the pain that he'd wrought upon himself. He was their leader it was his place to get his men out alive, and he's failed to do even that. It hurts him, and that's a good thing. The moment a commander starts not feeling this pain, even in a small amount, he's lost. He will no longer see his men as men, just canon fodder.​

​

In all another good combat scene with a well crafted emotional center.​

 

Chapter 4:

Tigereye walked towards the brown clothed body lying limp on the improvised medical stretcher. With his helmet taken off, he could hear the soft crunch of gravel beneath his feet. The man he approached lay still, with a gash stretching from one side of his forehead to another, the blood neatly mopped up to the point were only faint red dots speckled the exposed skin. The man’s left arm was terribly mangled, possibly broken, and had been bleeding. A long cast encircled his chest, the white color receding to a faint red. The man’s name was N’Kai Orden.

…​

Herto Green squinted through the light, the blue and white streaks of the hyperspace course put to par with the dull grey of the Excavator's left bridge. The colors were not what he should have been concerned with then. They were returning to Caderun.
Chancellor Palpatine himself had called up whatever was left of a fleet he could muster, which meant he was only able to obtain 4 Venators, 6 Light Cruisers and just a few Frigates. He shook his head. There were dozens, if not hundreds, of Separatists Heavy Flagships. They would be obliterated without a plan. Luckily they had one.
One of the officers in the it yelled something indistinct, and the entire vessel shook, shuddered, then fell out of hyperspace. The glass in front of his face turned dark and the air was quiet, for just a moment, everyone on the bridge holding their breaths in anticipation, then the front exploded into bursts of green and blue streaks of light.
They had opened fire. “Launch all fire, and advance, have frigates one through four stay back with the capital ships and have the light cruisers advance with their shields raise,” surprised at how calm he really was about this situation.
He didn’t need any verbal cues to see his orders were followed to the letter, all he had to do was look forward. A human officer, Tage, who had served with him from when he first was assigned to the Excavator at the beginning of the war. Two whole years.
Tage looked him in the eyes, “ Incoming transmission from, your, well you know.”
Green just nodded and walked with stride towards the holo table in the back half of the bridge. The ship shuddered as something hit the side of the hull, and Tage nearly lost balance, but Green reached out and grabbed the man by the arm, stabilizing him. Tage muttered something along the lines of a thank you. The pair continued walking towards the table.
A superimposed image of 3 other people in a light blue coloring. Not people. His “Brothers”. He was a clone.
Tage had known this for a long time, but still wasn’t very sure on anything. All Tage really knew was that he wasn’t a clone of Jango Fett, but taken actually made from the DNA strands of the dying Grand Admiral Herto Green over forty years ago, and five of him had been made, all sporting the same name. He had become recognized as one of the most famous throughout the ranks of the Republic navy.
Green nodded for Tage to leave, the ship shaking under his feet. Another hit. He looked up at his brothers, “Are all the ships in position.”
“Yes.”

“Yes.”
“Yeah.”
Three yesses. He smirked. Even though the four were almost always assigned to the same missions, they kept minimum contact. The thought of a full blown conversation with yourself was just unnatural.
The blue figures in front of him flashed white and quivered, then disappeared. Tage ran back up to him, “We’re ready.”
“Go.”

Tage started off. In a few minutes, if everything went to plan, they would have fresh troops and supplies on the surface.

 

Chapter 5:

CP-9576, Glance, yanked the joystick into the backwards position, the cramped area of the cockpit lit by the streaks of green, blue and red light from the war

ensuing onward around him. Starring forward, he could see the approaching droid fighters, hundreds maybe thousands of them, near the same amount he had

taken out throughout his entire career. The Tri Fighters had been created, shaped even bred for combat. Along with his V-Wing.

The wings of his squadron didn’t even need to check in, they could just glance and see on the coms. His group consisted of more than a few Y-Wings and a couple

ARC-170’s, along with the three other V-Wings. The fighters were in range.

He pushed down the yolk and jammed the fire button.

…​

The sound of thunder awoke the dormant body. N’Kai squinted his eyes as soft rain drizzled over his body, laid out across a stretcher, his top half completely

exposed. He opened his eyes fully for the first time in what felt like days, feeling fully refreshed, but he knew it couldn’t have been more than a few hours. He started

to push himself up and out of his position, but a sharp glance of pain shot through his ribs. He hadn’t felt that when he had awoken earlier.

He glanced at his stomach, nearly gasping at what he saw. A long gash, sown up with relative crudeness, an attempt to stop the bleeding rather than provide

comfort, ran down the left side of his torso. Watered down blood surrounded the cut, and he noticed that a moisture or bacta bandage of some kind must have

been recently removes, because a visibly wet rectangle lay in the with the soon to be scar.

He lay himself back in the bed and closed his eyes, only to be awoken moments later by pain shooting throughout his body. The Jedi started convulsing shaking the

stretcher, rolling from side to side across the temporary bed. The pain was seeping out from his stomach and across his body. He rolled off of the stretcher

thudding against the ground, clutching his throat. His lungs were filling up with something, bubbling through him, stopping the flow of air in his body. Then he threw

up.

His throat was raw and burnt, and he couldn’t move momentarily, lying in a puddle of his own puke, the warm substance pressed against his back, burning his skin.

That's when the needle went into his neck. Panicked filled his mind, and he tried to call out for help, but his voice wouldn’t come. His eyelids were feeling heavy, as if

begging for sleep, but his innards felt as if they were screaming for him to stay awake, to not sleep. Somehow he new sleep meant death.

He rolled around, as black gloved and white armoured hands tried to still him, and stop his struggling, but he wouldn’t let them. He rolled on to his back mistakenly,

pressing force onto his stomach wound, ripping out some of the stitches. He cried out in pain, puke now in and covering his eyes, and reached for the needle in his

neck, full of the chemicals and substances trying to sedate him, yanking it out of its hold on his flesh.


He was completely pinned down now, listening to the yelling around him, hearing snippets of sentences and even words.

“-Back on the table-”

“Don’t let him hit y-”

“Flip him ov-”

“Get the bacta patches!”

“Surgery!”

“Get him under-”

The voices became louder and more clear to him as he was lifted off the ground and his back hit a familiar surface, soft and welcoming. The stretcher. Then it hit

him. He was fighting his own troops. He stopped struggling and tried to say words, but he could only get one out, “Stop.”

His voice traveled through the air unheard.

…​

Narco was in a panic, the General had reopened his wounds back up and was lying awake on the table, shaking uncontrollably, despite the straps they had laid over

him. He approached him with a tank of bacta hung over his back, and his belt ready with each and every tool he would need for any sort of medical operation. He

pulled the scanner off his hip and pushed two troopers he hadn’t seen before out of his way.

He slowly moved the device inches above the general's body, numerous times, each time turning up nothing, raising the intensity of the scan each time. Then he

found something. Inside the generals stomach, multiple smaller life forms, bacteria of some sort, had crawled their way into the gash, pushing everything out of

their way and heading towards his nervous systems.
They had pushed the acidic acid out of his stomach, causing the man to throw up uncontrollably, but that didn't explain the convulsing. He reached for the tool on his
belt. This wasn’t going to be easy.

 

Early summer Break, sorry. Life Problems. I'll try and get something posted over the summer. ):