Star Wars - Hero of Cartao - Part 3 - Hero's End by Timothy Zahn

Author:Timothy Zahn [Zahn, Timothy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2003-09-21T12:08:51+00:00

“Two minutes to go,” Lieutenant Laytron said, consulting his chrono. “All squads, report by number.”

He fell silent, listening intently to the reports coming in over his headset. Doriana found himself gazing off to the north, across the open grassland and the picket line of combat droids standing guard there. The force was largely a token one, of course, since there were no doors or windows on the southern side of the plant. The main droid army, plus all their remaining AAT battle tanks, was concentrated around the more vulnerable eastern, western, and northern approaches.

But even a single person or machine on that forbidden stretch of lawn was anathema to the Cranscoc twillers who were the actual heart of the Spaarti operation. They were probably still twitching their indignation, in fact, over all those droids standing around out there. But of course, the Separatist commanders didn’t care about that.

On the other hand, since the plant’s tooling was still set for the cloning cylinders the Republic forces had been sent to Cartao to manufacture, Roshton probably didn’t much care if the twillers were upset, either. Two huge political systems, locked in a massive battle of wills and weapons and death, completely oblivious as to how their actions affected those around them.

But those actions frequently involved a lot of unexpected collateral damage. That was a lesson someone was going to learn today.

“One minute,” Laytron said. “Stand ready.”

Doriana took a deep breath, willing calmness into himself. He had carried out his part of the plan, he knew, maneuvering both sides to precisely the right place and the right time. The rest was now out of his hands, and he could feel the churning sense of frustration that always came upon him at times like this.

“And… go.”

With the multi-level roar of a dozen different engine models, a dozen commandeered civilian landspeeders leaped into view from concealment among the hills dotting the landscape, each loaded with anywhere from four to eight clone troopers. Quickly, they maneuvered around their hills to form an attack line on the southern edge of the grassland. Then, as the enemy pickets and the high-flying STAPs seemed to take notice, the engine pitches changed, and the vehicles set off at full speed toward the plant.

“Stand by, cover fire,” Laytron ordered. The STAPs were swooping in to the attack, their twin blasters spitting fire at the landspeeders. Ahead of the advancing landspeeders, the picket forces were drawing inward to form a solid counterline between the clone troopers and the plant. Their blasters opened up, too, searching for the range-

“Fire,” Laytron said.

The tops of a dozen nearby hills suddenly blurred as camouflage covers were thrown off and heavy weapons scavenged from damaged gunships and AATs were swung around to bear on the enemy. Laser cannon bolts sizzled across the incoming STAPs, destroying half a dozen in the first salvo and sending the rest twisting away into evasive maneuvers. A pair of missiles streaked from one of the hills to hit the droid counterline dead center.

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