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By Root 977 0

The armies of Separatist droids here had been reduced to scrap and a few pockets of resistance; Christophsis had finally fallen to the Republic. In the shelter of a colonnaded doorway that was doubling as a first-aid station, he took out his datapad to check the casualty reports coming in, conscious of an injured trooper sitting on an upturned crate while the sergeant—Coric—tended to the man’s shrapnel injury. Plastoid armor was said to be the best credits could buy; Rex staked his life on it. But it had to have joints, gaps, and seals—and they were always vulnerable. The trooper had taken a spray of jagged fragments as razor-sharp and as lethal as fléchettes. Some had penetrated the gap between back plate and shoulder.

“How you doing, Ged?” Rex asked.

“Grateful it’s just my shoulder, sir,” said the trooper, not looking around. “At least I can still sit down.”

Yes, it wasn’t bad kit. Could have been better, like the fancy ARC trooper rig he’d seen, but it did the job. The relatively short list of names and ID numbers on his ’pad was testament to that.

Light casualties for a battle. Doesn’t feel like that, though.

“Running low on bacta, sir,” Coric said. There was a metallic tinkle as he dropped bloodstained fragments into a plastoid container. “Okay on analgesics for the time being.”

Rex did a quick mental calculation of how long it would take the cruiser Hunter to reach the supply base, load up, and return. “They’ve sent the ship for replenishment. It’ll be back in—”

Rex heard his helmet sensors blipping before he felt the blast. He snatched it up and lowered it into place just as something crashed into the street behind them.

Whoomp—whoomp. A massive explosion shook the ground, then another.

“Incoming!” a voice yelled over the clatter of raining debris.

Yeah, we noticed. Thanks.

Rex grabbed his rifle and sprinted for the street. He didn’t look back at Coric or the injured trooper. The two Jedi generals—Kenobi and Skywalker—were already in the open, dodging blasterfire. When Rex got level with them, he could see a wall of droids, rank upon rank, marching toward them in that weird synchrony. It wasn’t the same as a well-drilled army of human beings. The precision was cold, unthinking, inexorable, as if the tinnies would keep marching right on over you and crush everything in their path. It was the SBDs, the super battle droids, that really got to him.

He sighted up and aimed.

It was the way they ran with their firing arms extended. And they had no visible heads. Any tinny could kill you, but at least the regular droids looked vaguely human.

Do they think? Do they feel? Do I care?

No.

Us or them.

Rex squeezed off a few rounds, smashing into the front rank. It wouldn’t do more than slow them down. It never did. The game was all about numbers, and the droids had them. Clone troopers, roused from brief sleep or caught while gulping down dry rations, took up defensive positions.

Clone Commander Cody sprinted to Kenobi’s side. “Where the stang did they come from?”

General Kenobi didn’t seem too pleased with his young general. “I told you they caved in too fast,” he said, swinging his lightsaber in an arc to deflect a volley of blaster bolts. It was hard to hear him over the blasterfire. “Some victory, Anakin …”

“I wasn’t the one who decided to send the ship for supplies …” Skywalker stood his ground, lightsaber grasped two-handed. “Master.”

“Neither of us is perfect, then, and let that be our lesson—second wave incoming, men. Stand to.”

Anakin swung around. “Platoon, on me!” he barked, tapping the top of his head in the signal to form up. Skywalker even sounded like a soldier. He was an easy general to follow. “Rex, see that building? The energy sphere? Best position, I think.”

Rex flicked the macrobinocular setting on his helmet to get a close-up view. “You want to go around behind.”

“It’s risky, but we can make it.”

“Okay, let’s go for it, sir.”

Chunk-chunk-chunk. The battle droids marched like a single machine. Rex hated that noise. It just would not stop.

Droids relied on numbers and keeping coming,