Chapter 121: Chapter 110
Hypori, upper atmosphere.
"Alright brothers, five minutes till your taxi service ends. Hope you've been enjoying the flight so far."
Spoon smiled as he listened to the pilot of the LAAT/s, the stealth version of the standard LAAT/i, joke over the comm.
He liked Biter and his co-pilot, another clone called Red. Both men were competent and professional, if a bit easy going, and they had both volunteered for, and passed, the ARC trooper training course that Spoon and several of his Alpha ARC brothers had organised back on Kamino.
Most of the graduates of that training course had ended up as officers in the republics clone army, with quite a few being given the rank of commander and their own jedi to baby sit, but Biter and Red had instead joined an elite squadron of pilots focused on flying troops into extremely dangerous territory.
"You heard the flyboys, we're about to enter the enemy's defensive perimeter. Check you're weapons and get ready." The calm, commanding voice of ARC Captain Fordo came over the comm and Spoon and the other nine ARC lieutenants riding in the LAAT/s's troop bay immediately jumped to comply.
"Does anyone else not understand how we're supposed to evac the entire the crew of multiple capital ships with one small gunship? Does this thing have extra troop holds that I don't know about?" Myx, one of the other Alpha ARCs, complained as he checked his blaster rifle.
"You know the mission… we're only to evac the surviving jedi… intel says clone forces were completely wiped out after the fleet crashed" Ice, another Alpha ARC, said softly.
"Yeah, but that intel comes from the jedi on the ground, I doubt they even cared enough to check if any of our brothers survived." Egg, one of the three Alpha Arcs' along with Spoon that Renn had befriended years earlier, said and Spoon had felt himself agreeing with him.
"Enough. We've got reports that of an unknown hostile on site that has already single handedly killed several jedi, stay focused." Captain Fordo cut in before an argument about whether or not the jedi actually cared about the troops under their command.
The argument had started between the ARC troopers after the battle of Geonosis and usually got quite heated, even if most of them were agreeing with each other.
"Doesn't matter what's out there, I can take them," Badger, another of Spoon's closest friends, said as he hefted his reciprocating quad blaster.
Spoon grinned at his brother before grabbing a bandolier of extra grenades for his blaster rifles underslung launcher, just in case.
"Urgh, I've got a bad feeling about this." Omen, another of Spoon's brothers, muttered darkly causing Spoon, Egg and a several more of their brothers to laugh.
"You said that about Muunalist too and look how that turned out" Egg said jokingly.
Spoon, Egg and Omen along with eight highly trained clones that were candidates to become ARC troopers had followed Captain Fordo on a mission to Muunilist during the invasion of the planet which had earned them all a bit of a reputation.
"We got shot down…" Omen said dryly.
"Yeah, but it wasn't that bad of a crash," Egg said shrugging.
"And general Kenobi got eaten by a Gen' Dai," Omen observed neutrality.
"The captain had that handled," Spoon said and watched as Omen just shrugged non-commitally.
"There's just no pleasing some people," Egg said with mock disappointment and Spoon laughed along with him.
"Approaching droid perimeter, we are undetected," Biter's voice came other the comm, suddenly a devoid of any humour and completely professional.
"Gun it," The captain ordered and the gunship instantly lurched forwards as it accelerated to full speed.
Spoon watched through the open bay doors as they skimmed just above the heads of an army of super battle droids, so numerous it looked like an ocean.
The battle droids didn't immediately recognise the fact that a republic gunship had just appeared right above them and by the time they had Biter was already manoeuvring between huge chunks of debris that used to be Jedi general Ki-Adi Mundi's fleet.
Mundi had been ordered to assault the separatist forces on Hypori, following the successful defence of the republic world of Dantooine by General Windu's forces.
Three Acclamators full of clones and a sizeable force of jedi had been under Mundi's command as he went to reinforce Jedi General Daakman Barrek and his padawan for a raid on the planet after he had collected intel that it was home to key separatist facilities.
Spoon hadn't been informed of the exact result of that battle, it was fairly clear from the fact that all three republic capital ships were now smashed to pieces on the planet's surface that it hadn't gone well.
General Kenobi had received a distress call from general Barrek who had alluded to the fact that the defeat had been caused by a new separatist droid general, and not as Spoon and the other ARC's suspect jedi incompetence.
Kenobi had then dispatched Captain Fordo and his team of ARC troopers to rescue the jedi on Hypori, mainly stressing the importance of the fact that both Mundi and Barrek were members of the jedi high council, as he was too busy preparing for his own assault on Christophsis.
Spoon wasn't holding out much hope that any of the jedi were actually still alive, they had lost contact with general Barrek shortly after his distress call and hadn't been able to reach any of the other jedi, but he wasn't too concerned by that.
He was mainly just hoping that all his brothers would come out of this suicide mission still breathing.
Spoon's stomach nearly dropped down into his boots as Biter banked the LAAT/s hard before blowing a hole into the side of a wrecked Acclamator and flying the gunship through the narrow gap.
"Ground floor, everybody out." Biter said cooly as he swung the gunship down to hover just above the ground.
But Spoon and the other ARCs were already jumping out to follow their captain even before the LAAT/s had stopped moving.
"Three life signs. One in the rubble. One in the rafters." The captain said as he gestured towards the locations of possible survivors, the portable scanner in his hand giving him the readings, and small chorus of 'Sir's sounded as two of the ARC lieutenants broke off from the group to retrieve the wounded.
"Everyone else with me, move out!" Fordo ordered and instantly the entire team of ARC troopers were charging forwards, their blasters up and at the ready.
As they ran Spoon could hear the staccato bursts of Biter's LAAT/s's blasters ripping into the advancing droid army, giving a chilling reminder of the tight schedule the ARCs were working to.
The ARCs burst into a large open space in the wreckage to see a bedraggled looking general Mundi about to be struck down by a large four-armed cyborg wielding an array of lightsabres.
"Blast him," Frodo ordered, and the ARCs instantly opened fire.
ARC lieutenants fired their Westar m-5s on full auto, sending a flurry of blaster bolts towards the cyborg who used two of his numerous lightsabres to deflect the bolts as he retreated.
Spoon and a couple of his ARC brothers switched to firing grenades towards the cyborg while Badger and Stec, the other ARC heavy gunner, who had been slowed by their heavier weapons entered the fight and began firing towards the cyborg.
Badger's reciprocating quad blaster launched heavy explosive bolts towards the enemy, while Stec's Z-6 rotary blaster cannon added to the weight of the ARCs outgoing blaster fire.
But the enemy cyborg was fast, dodging and weaving between debris to avoid the blaster bolts before using his clawed feet to run straight up a wall.
Spoon, Egg and Omen were on the right flank and began pushing forwards to keep the pressure up as Myx and Ice secured general Mundi.
Grenades and heavy blaster bolts exploded around the slipper cyborg, but he was too fast for any of them to land an accurate shot.
"Shoot him down! Shoot him down!" general Mundi wailed and order from behind the clones and Spoon grimaced.
"The fuck does he think we're trying to do, paint a lovely picture?" Egg growled in frustration as the cyborg dodged another grenade.
"Igno--- Shit!" Spoon cursed as the cyborg suddenly stopped and used his powerful bionic legs to launch himself straight towards them.
The mechanical monstrosity adjusted himself midair with unnatural grace and slammed feet first into Omen.
The force of the impact drove the unprepared ARC trooper into the ground, his clawed feet cracking through Omen's plasteel chest plate.
Spoon reached forwards instantly, almost subconsciously, and grabbed Egg by the back of his armour.
He dragged his arm back and threw his brother backwards, hoping to save him from what was about to happen, but he was too late.
The cyborg slashed towards Egg with one of his lightsabres and Spoon's heart went cold as he heard his brother scream in pain.
Spoon didn't have time to check on his brother though, his mind flashing back to training on kamino with his genetic donor Jango.
"The first rule of combat first aid is killing the thing attacking you before you worry about helping the wounded. You're not going to be able to patch up anyone if you're bleeding out too," The comforting ghost of his still alive sort of farther screamed inside his head.
Spoon let go of Egg as his hand passed his side before ripping a droid popper off his belt, firing his m-5 one handed on full auto the whole time.
He tossed the EMP grenade towards the cyborg, knowing that a thermal detonator would kill him and his two wounded brothers at such a close range.
The cyborg attempted to bat the grenade away with one of his arms, but it exploded on impact, sending arcs of blue lightning in all directions.
Spoon's helmet's HUD went dead from the effects of the EMP, and he grinned as he noticed at least one of the cyborgs arms had also stopped working.
He raised his blaster rifle, but it failed to fire, so he swung it like a club into the side of the Cyborg's head knocking it back a step, just as a wall exploded and a republic LAAT/s rocketed into the room.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone