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| - The explosions grew louder. Taylor hugged the barricade. She had no hope of escaping. The Rodian invaders were fast approaching. Most of her ally Mandalorians had been either shot down or captured. The battle was going downhill from here. Mandalore was being run over. Men, warriors, were falling all around her. Chaos and defeat were imminent. However, Taylor Winston had no intention of escaping.“Chad!” she yelled at her husband behind another dirt barricade, “I’m heading behind their lines. I’m going to cause as much destruction as possible before they completely raze us!”“No don’t! Not yet at least,” He yelled back at her. “They have a sniper trained on your position. I’ll take care of ‘em.” He changed the setting on his rifle to the sniper setting, aimed, and fired a clean shot in the head. The Rodian fell soundlessly. “Now go! Hurry, before they realize the casualty!”Taylor nodded. The battle had taken a rhythmic pattern for her. Sniper after sniper had taken aim on her, only to be shot down by either her or Chad. She couldn’t help being Mandalore’s best fighter. She just was. The Rodians knew it, too. Why else would they be trying to shoot her with a sniper bolt? They couldn’t have that many more snipers. She and Chad had downed twenty-six of them so far. Either way, the Mandalorian defense hadn’t been doing very well since the head Mandalorian General had been blown to bits by a rocket blast. Recently, the Valdosians, a horned, lightsaber-wielding sentient species native to the planet Valdosia, had arrived to aid the Mandalorians in their defense. They had been trying their hardest, but honestly, Taylor thought, they weren’t doing much good. Many of the Valdosians had already fallen, and hope was scarce for the Mandalorian defenders.Presently, a Rodian vaulted over the barricade that Taylor was behind. She was hardly startled, and she squeezed a shot out at it, and it toppled over. A Valdosian then tapped Taylor on the shoulder. She looked up and saw the worn and beaten face of Charionaar the Assaulter, a renowned Valdosian and one of the only Valdosians that she could count as a friend. As she stood, Taylor noted the unusually scarred and cut features of Charionaar’s red skin hue. He had probably been having a worse time than she had been, as he was in the middle of the battle for the most part.Charionaar said, “Winston, we need to move quickly now if we are to infiltrate enemy lines.” He then motioned toward three Mandalorians and three Valdosians standing farther away. “These will be coming with us.”Taylor was introduced to the three Valdosians as quickly as possible. “This is Sakera,” he said, waving at the tallest of the three Valdosians. This one’s skin was bluish-green in color. He seemed well built and was battle worn. Charionaar continued, “He will go ahead of us and be the first to see the enemy camp.” Charionaar pointed at the second Valdosian. “This is Chairf. He’s one of our best fighters.” Chairf was about the same stature as Sakera. He looked the most intimidating of the Valdosians. Charionaar pointed at the last Valdosian there. “Finally, this is Shena. You probably already know her.” He was right. She and Shena had fought alongside each other on Concord Dawn. The green-skinned Valdosian was one of Taylor’s closest friends. She was also married to Charionaar. “Okay,” Taylor said. “Let’s go.”Chad’s voice came from behind her as she turned to leave. He said, “Hold up, I’m coming, too!” He dove past the gap between the two barricades, launched himself toward her, and stood up. He grabbed a nearby chaingun that had fallen to the ground and hefted it into a ready position. “Alright,” he said. “Now we can go.”Taylor didn’t need to be introduced to the Mandalorians. She already knew them as Araika Nar, Skekna Kendalana, and Greel Knarifac. They knew her, too. An introduction was meaningless. The nine warriors headed of to the side, then turned toward the Rodian encampment. Sakera was up in front, deflecting blaster bolts here and there into the bodies of shocked Rodian officers and soldiers. His brightly colored red-gold lightsaber looked so brilliant in the heat of battle that it temporarily mesmerized Taylor, so that she was distracted from the battle. She returned to awareness only when a Rodian fell upon her wielding a vibroblade. Taylor batted it down and instinctively shot it square in the chest with her rifle. She continued on.Charionaar, who was beside Taylor, said, “I hope we can get there soon. We have had some near misses. If we keep this up, we will eventually get injured." Taylor nodded at him. He was right. She could see Chairf up in front of her by a couple of meters struggling to dodge incoming blaster bolts, and she needn’t look behind her to know that Shena and Charionaar were doing the same.A Heavy-Guard Rodian officer stepped up in front of the party. It raised its flamethrower to torch Sakera, but as it pulled the trigger, the flame didn’t hinder Sakera, for Valdosians were naturally physically tough. He pushed the weapon aside and stabbed his lightsaber into the Rodian’s gut. As the alien fell, Sakera kicked the dying body away and looked to his side, into the battlefield, and fired some shots into the fury. All the others did the same, and they made the mistake of not looking ahead of them also. A clanking noise made Taylor look up where the group was heading. They were running straight into a large gunner barricade. She shouted to the others, “Look out! Dive to the side!”They all jumped to separate sides just before the gunners opened fire. However, Sakera, being up in front, took a moment longer in getting out of the way. He suffered a wound to his right leg. He thrust himself behind a nearly destroyed barricade to inspect the wound. He immediately took out a cylindrical case of bacta liquid to put on the wound. The rest of the group also opened fire on the guns. After a minute of firing, Chairf said, “I got one!” The others looked to see a slumped, headless body on the top of the barricade. The other gunners stared wide-eyed at the mauled body of their fallen comrade, and, taking advantage of the diversion, Charionaar ignited his lightsaber and rushed the barricade. As he vaulted it, he cut the gunners’ bodies apart with smooth strokes of his neon colored lightsaber, and Taylor listened without emotion to the bloodcurdling scream of the Rodian gunners as they fell. Sakera followed Charionaar swiftly over the barricade, because he had put bacta on his wound. The others also followed after. They were then in the Rodian camp, but they were not alone.There were few tents in this particular section of the enemy camp, but there were numerous soldiers there. As the enemy soldiers began firing, Taylor and the others had to back over the gunner barricade again to seek cover. They returned fire. Burning projectiles soared all around Taylor. Taylor rolled behind a dirt mound to dodge a blast. Nothing good is going to come of this if we just lay here like a frightened bunch of hut’uune. This ends now. She leaned over to get a clear shot at a Rodian. It toppled immediately. Taylor turned around and saw Greel climb over the barricade in an attempt to run through the Rodian defense. Not even a few seconds passed before Greel’s corpse came over the barricade. Taylor was appalled. She resumed shooting. A Rodian let loose a very strange yelp as Taylor shot its throat. It fell backwards into another Rodian, causing the other to rapidly shoot around. In only a few seconds, a groan from Chairf said that he had been hit, but not badly. Sakera stood on the gunner barricade and repeatedly deflected blaster bolts back at the enemies. Scarlet flashed filled the air in the Rodian camp. Some blasts ricocheted into the Rodians who fired them, while some others got hit by their own comrades’ shots, and still others went elsewhere. They’re not guarding the rear. They think we can’t sneak around. Well, we’ll just have to show them how wrong they are. Rodians can be such di’kuts.Taylor rolled over to the side and dove behind a large corpse. She stayed there for only a second before making the long dash to the back part of the camp. When she got there, she looked on at the skirmish raging in front of her. She couldn’t see Chad among the craze. She hadn’t noticed he was gone. A slight rustle got her attention, and she turned around. Taylor saw a fallen pack lying open on the ground. She looked up and saw a Rodian fleeing from battle. It obviously was scared of her and didn’t want to share his allies’ fate. Taylor turned back to the pack. As she searched it, she located a repeating rifle among the regular junk that was in there. Satisfied, she lifted it up to attach a portable grenade attachment that she had as a souvenir from Coruscant. She took aim at the Rodian clod in front of her. In one deafening blast, at least twenty Rodians flew to each side of the small strike force. Charionaar and Shena ran through the gap in the Rodians cutting them down with their lightsabers. Taylor took the repeating rifle and ran into the midst of the flurry, but three oncoming Rodian attack squads came running into the battle and forced Taylor back out of the mess. In a flash, Sakera had jumped in, hit the squads with a Force gust, and sent them backwards into their fellow soldiers. Sakera cut a path to the outside to let Taylor jump in, too. He’s just too polite to others. That’s going to be his downfall someday, the di’kut. Taylor tossed the repeating blaster away, picked up her rifle, and dove in. Almost all of the Rodians were dead by then, and she started shooting into the center of the group. Rodians fell in a line and formed a path from her to Shena. Taylor ran the distance and stood back to back with Shena. Shena said, “I didn’t think that they’d have this much of their military here. They should be out on the battlefield with the rest of their soldiers.” Quickly, she dropped flat on the ground as a Rodian’s sword whistled over her head. She stood up and fired a round at a group of Rodians advancing toward her. They fell, and then she saw that there weren’t many of the soldiers left. She rolled to the side and stole over to her previous spot at the rear of the camp. She picked up the grenade launcher and rifle. She proceeded to search for the grenade launcher’s power setting. She located a small lever on the side of the attachment and turned it until it was set on High Power. Taylor shouted, “Clear!” and all the Valdosians threw themselves to the side as Taylor launched the grenade. The explosion shook half the camp and sent Taylor sprawling back onto the ground. When she rose, Taylor saw that only two Rodian soldiers were left alive. She slotted one with her rifle, and the other turned to run, but Chairf, who was still behind the barricade leapt over and slit the Rodian from shoulder to hip. Then that the battle was over, the remaining group members searched the camp. For five minutes, no one found anything of concern until Charionaar came back saying that he had found the politicians’ sector of the camp. The group rushed there and looked around the area. Tents were scattered around a huge clearing. Taylor stood in awe of the number of structures before her.Some tents were empty, but there was one conspicuous one that was larger than the others. It apparently was housing a meeting. Taylor listened intently. She could hear two Rodian voices, and one other booming, roaring voice in another unfamiliar language. Oh no, Taylor thought. It can’t be…. Charionaar crept toward the tent, and Taylor tried to warn him of the danger. “Charionaar!” she whispered. “Don’t go! There’s a Ch-” Charitaur. She bit back on her words. If she told Charionaar, then this whole mission would be for nothing. He would really freeze with fear.However, she didn't have to. Charionaar cut her off with a finger held up to his mouth. “Quiet!” he mouthed back at her. He then jumped into the tent. Taylor cringed at the sound of two sickening screams from the Rodians, then a couple of seconds passed, and there was no sound from Charionaar.Oh, no. Taylor held back tears. Shena was doing the same thing. Taylor bit her lip and crept to the tent. She stood for a second, then launched herself into the tent… into the awaiting grip of a monstrous Charitaur. The last thing she saw before blacking out was Chad vaulting a barricade wielding two Valdosian lightsabers. She just hoped that he wouldn’t meet the same fate as she would….
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