Star Wars: The Clone Wars by Karen Traviss

Author:Karen Traviss
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3, pdf
Tags: Fantasy, Space Opera, Star Wars fiction, General, Space warfare, Imaginary wars and battles, Adventure, Science fiction, Fiction
ISBN: 9780345508980
Publisher: Del Rey
Published: 2008-07-26T07:00:00+00:00

"Ma'am, this isn't as simple as it looks," the commander said, trotting ahead of her and trying to look back at the same time. "The door is massive, and you said no rapid entry using charges."

"I didn't tell you to work your way through with a manicure file, either ..."

Two droids were working on the external controls, tinkering with colored wires. No wonder the Republic chose to use cloned humans. Ventress watched in dismay for a few moments as they debated over which wires to reattach, the red ones or the blue ones.

"You're not defusing a bomb, you fools!" she snapped. "Try each combination and see what works. There aren't that many, are there?"

"Ma'am, the Republic troops fused the interior controls by..." "So you can't open it."

"We can, but we have to isolate the circuit above the point where the damage occurred."

Ventress sized up the panels that surrounded the door. In the time the droids had taken to get this far, the clones inside would have prepared any number of traps and countermeasures to slow them down. She certainly would have. She'd have excavated a pit just inside the door, for a start; she'd have rigged charges in the joists and supports to bring the roof of the passage crashing down the moment the bulk of the droid assault force was inside. She'd have made finding a rear exit a priority.

She estimated that Skywalker had maybe forty or fifty troops left, but it was impossible to know how much ordnance they had or if they'd taken any special equipment in with them.

"Stand aside," she said.

At least droids didn't argue. They let her inspect the controls. She could see wires protruding from a metal conduit buried in the doorframe, but the frame was so thick that the internal mechanism was embedded too far inside for her to see it or reach it. There was a quick, one-way solution, though. She motioned the droids away from the frame, drew both lightsabers, and turned to face the ranks of battle droids waiting to begin the assault.

"When I give the order," she said, "you will storm the entrance, because the door will be open. The troops inside will have the initial advantage, because you have to negotiate a choke point which will negate your numbers, but you have vastly superior numbers, and you will simply press on until you overwhelm them. It's that simple. You will neutralize the Republic forces, but you will not proceed farther until I tell you to do so, because I must have that Huttlet alive and well. Is that clear?"

The droids listened intently. They should have been programmed to do this, but she liked to be certain that they were on the same page of the manual that she was. Lateral thinking was not their forte.

The battle droids responded in one synchronized chorus. "Copy copy!"

Ventress raised her right arm, igniting one red lightsaber blade and twirling the hilt in a stab grip. "Stand by."

She brought the blade down in

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