At this musky level of Coruscant, a man couldn't be more miserable, but an artist like Giso Nan? She seems to see this place as a paradise, gazing all around the groggy, dim scenery with wonderful, colorful curiosity. Call this Jedi crazy, but the Bith knows how to place a brush on canvas and a saber in a clanker. With her by our side, we clones feel rather safe on a battlefield, but when in this muggy city, all we can feel is the recycled air in our lungs. Still, we all respect the Jedi Knight because she went directly against her home planet's decision in the war; Clak'dor VII has joined the Separatists, but Giso Nan is adamant to help the good guys. She's saved my life on more than one occasion, same with my brothers, so we can say that we trust her with our lives.
Although we might have a history with Giso Nan, our platoon has got some bad luck now. We're taking a lousy patrol to find a crime lord down in the depths of the city. There's been suspicious activity involving illegal arms dealing, and our platoon was assigned to have to patrol this area. Currently Giso Nan, CT-1919-91 "Wonine", CT-2127 "Rogers", and I, CT-2333-33 "Helix", are searching a middle level of the city to meet an informant. As far as we know, this will be our first solid piece of evidence on who the illegal dealers are.
"Wonine, Rogers," Giso Nan orders, "I want you two to keep the exits secure."
"Yes, ma'am," Wonine acknowledges, followed by Rogers' signature "Roger."
"Helix," she gives my shoulder a pat, "You and I will meet the informant."
"Understood," I respond, nodding to her.
Wonine starts hurrying around the droid shop to the east end, ready to guard the door. Meanwhile Rogers is setting himself up on the west entrance in front of us and Giso Nan and I walk in.
Inside are shelves and shelves of mechanical components. Half-broken and half-repaired droids are laying about and beeps and static sound can be heard buzzing around the small shop. I feel cramped in my armor being in the small space, but Giso Nan strides in, as calm as ever. A male Twi'lek stands straight behind the counter as soon as he sees us, and a female human stopped with her tinkering on an old astromech droid when she glanced over at us. Giso Nan walks up to the counter while I walk around it, scanning its contents to prevent the Twi'lek from grabbing any weapons. Once I see that there are only cheap tools around, I navigate through the maze of droids, oil cans, and damaged components to scan the rest of the room.
"Greetings, Jedi," the Twi'lek man nervously says in the Twi'leki language, leaning his hands on the counter.
"You are Reess the droid mechanic?" Giso Nan questions in Basic language, "We're here because you have information, right?" As she speaks, I've decided that the useless droids and parts are not a threat, and nod towards her. She gives a curt nod in response.
"Of course, Jedi!"
"Tell us, then. We want to know everything about the illegal arms dealers." I stay situated in the back, looking out the tiny window slits to confirm that Rogers and Wonine are doing their jobs. The woman goes back to her work, ignoring everyone else.
"A few intimidating men visited my shop, Jedi, demanding to take my droids for storing some blasters. They held some blasters themselves, I noticed that one of them had a strange addition to it."
"Go on."
"I had my assistant, who was once a mechanic on blasters, find out if she could figure out what kind of addition it was, and she recognized that it is an illegal grenade part. It looks likes a sonic grenade launcher but is actually a vaporizing grenade."
"Those are indeed illegal. Keep talking, Reess."
"They stole some of my droids, and I always have trackers on them. If I show you my monitors, you might be able to find out where my droids went."
"You sure you're not lying just to get your droids back?" I inquire the Twi'lek. He turns around to face me, a look of sternness on his face.
"I swear I am not lying, clone."
"I don't know, this sounds fishy to me. You just said that the men had illegal blaster attachments, but do you have any video feed? Any of your droids have a hologram stored of this encounter?" The woman tilts her head towards me.
"Does it look like that?" the snarky woman replies.
"Soldier," Giso Nan begins, "We will follow their lead, and if Reess here is lying, then he will simply not get his droids back. Even if the men who came here are not the dealers, they might know who the dealers are."
"Yes, ma'am," I acknowledge.
"Thank you for your time, Reess."
"Of course, Jedi."
"Helix, let's go." She waves with her hand.
"Yes, ma'am," I say again. I knock twice on the east door to let Wonine know to meet us up front.
I start to make my way through the maze again when I get a sudden transmission. Someone looking like the Chancellor after being boiled alive, wearing Jedi robes with a hood on, pops up as a hologram on my HUD. This is a clones-only transmission, and judging by how Rogers reacted out the window, I think we all got the message.
"Execute Order 66," the Chancellor commands. Order 66, Find and Eliminate all Jedi for Treason. One of the many orders we clones were programmed as younglings.
The transmission closes and I see Rogers ready his blaster and pointing it at the west door. Wonine enters through the east door and taps me on my shoulder. We both raise our blasters.
"I thought I was safe, Jedi!" the Twi'lek bastard yells, causing Giso Nan to turn around and activate her lightsaber.
"Don't!" she pleads, but she's too late. We have our orders.
Wonine fire two blasts as I fire one. All three are deflected and one bounces back to Wonine, hitting his trigger arm. Rogers runs through the west door and shoots at the Jedi's back, but she hops to her side and the blast hits the human woman and causes her to fall. Seven more blasts, but because of this damn small space, the Jedi keeps dodging and deflecting. Wonine yells loudly as he charges at the Jedi, trying to tackle her. Instead, the Jedi, from the peaceful Clak'dor VII and the Bith species and of a peaceful Jedi Order and with such a beautiful and innocent sense of artistic style and seeing everything with value, swings at Wonine, slashing him across the chest and severing his hand, tripping him onto his back.
Rogers chooses this moment to blast the Jedi twice, and now she's finally down. The Twi'lek man is screaming and cursing and running to his fallen assistant. Rogers and I walk up to the groaning Jedi.
"Sorry, ma'am," I somberly apologize, "We have orders." I look at Rogers. He's uninjured. "Rogers, get Wonine out of here."
"Yes, sir." Rogers answers, feeling like "Yessirs" than "Rogers", and nods at me and gets to Wonine to carry him out.
"Giso Nan, it was an honor being by your side." I pull the stiff, hesitating trigger, looking the Bith in the eyes, but she didn't see my eyes through my standard Phase II polarized lenses in my helmet. A blast is heard as it is all around the galaxy, where all Jedi are now being hunted and killed because of orders to the clone troopers.
"Grab her weapon," Rogers advises me. I do so and hold the lightsaber in the florescent, dim light to see its simple yet beautiful design. Hanging the saber on my side, I walk out with my brothers into the open.
We call up the platoon to get us out of here. So begin dark days, when no longer will we see the value and art in everything. All because we have orders.
ns 15.158.61.19da2
