Chapter 131 - Snow

Explosions after explosions, some bigger, some smaller, happened all around the space, only to be instantly extinguished by the vacuum.

Rozal already had a faltered battalion, and he was losing more and more men. But it was just his, and theirs, duty. Since the Republic was losing some, of course they were also winning some. Steel Battalion blew up their fourth target since the attack had started, and the Munificent-class frigate broke in half.

That opened a clear path for one of the Acclamator-class cruisers to dive straight in between two badly damaged Separatist sh.i.p.s. The batteries on both sides of the cruiser opened up, tearing holes in the enemy sh.i.p.s. Each time one of the highly concentrated energy beams hit the sh.i.p.s, droids were sucked into space, screaming.

Suddenly, one of the lasers hit an ammo deposit on a Separatist dreadnought. The capsules of tibana gas were very unstable, and couldn't handle a direct hit. They blew up, and caused a chain reaction. Sequences of explosions started in the middle of the ship, and extended to both sides. In a few minutes, the command bridge lost its support, and crashed down on the top of the dreadnought, creating yet another hole. Without its 'head' and 'fangs' the massive ship started falling down, pulled by the gravitational field of Mygeeto.

As the broken dreadnought entered the atmosphere, the friction caused it to catch on fire, and break down even more. The Republic cruiser, having gotten rid of one enemy, focused all its firepower on the other ship, and also destroyed it, although it took heavy damages.

However, it had opened the path the clones needed. At The Sincerity, and a dozen other sh.i.p.s, the ground troopers were already on their Laats, and taking off. This time, General Di and his padawan were on the same gunship as Hell Squad.

"Admiral, I'm leaving the fight up here to you. May the Force be with you."

"Good luck, general."

Laat after Laat left the Republic cruisers, and started to descend on the planet below. Some were shot down, but many more touches the ground safely, including the one Hell Squad was.

Mygeeto was very different from any planet Dageer had fought in before. Geonosis and Rhen Var were desolate. Scarif and Mon Cala were full of water. Coruscant was a city, rather than a planet. Dantooine and Iktotch were flourishing with life. But Mygeeto was a cold, barren desert of snow.

As soon as Dageer jumped out of the Laat, his legs burrowed into the snow, up to his knees. Dageer cursed. With snow that high, their movement speed would slow down tremendously.

Luckily for them, they didn't come under direct fire right after they landed, but had some time to form up. The objective was a small city called Tkila.

Like most cities on Mygeeto, Tkila was built on the edges of a cliff, and it was mostly vertical, not horizontal. The natives of Mygeeto, a small, furry species called Lurmen, had been forced out of the planet by the InterGalatic Banking Clan.

The Banking Clan had maintained a neutral position in the war for just enough time to get their assets out of Coruscant and the Core. After all their most valuable possessions were safe, they aligned with the Separatist, and started funding their large droid army.

Mygeeto was one of the planets that the Separatist had 'given' to the Banking Clan, without worrying that the Lurmen would complain. Since the Lurmen were pacifists, most of them had left the planet on their own volition, and those who didn't were driven away.

Of course, none of this mattered to Dageer. In his thinking, driving away the Lurmen was only another injustice the Separatist had committed. What really mattered to Dageer, was knowing how and where the Lurmen lived, because that would be his battlefield.

As said before, the cities in Mygeeto were built on cliffs, and connected by bridges. The bridges had a handrail about waist-high, which was good for the small Lurmen, but just high enough for clones and droids to trip and fall. That being said, the bridges were also an open space, with no cover.

Tkila, in specific, was just a small city, and as such, didn't have a very big droid force. It had, however, one AAT, and two E-Web turrets that were causing many casualties.

As another of his brothers fell by his side, Dageer lobbed a thermal detonator over his head, trying to hit one of the E-Webs, but it fell short. The detonator bumped on a piece of metal, and fell on the snow. When it blew up, dirt pieces of snow and ice were sent flying, partially covering the nearby droid units. One of them was even hit by a bigger shard, and fell in the snow.

"We need to get closer! Go, go, go!"

Commander Keeli rushed the clones, but the thick snow made moving fast difficult. Each step the clones took needed their knees to get up to waist level before stepping down again.

But that was the case just for the clones. The jedi seemed to be unaffected, and were running as if they were on solid ground. Their steps were light, leaving only a small footprint on the snow.

The droid sergeant commanding the AAT had already seen General Di and Ragout, and had focused the tank's main cannon at them.

Meanwhile, Hell Squad finally made it to the first building, a small hut that was slowly being transformed into a sieve by red lasers. There was a side benefit to officially stepping into Tkila, which was that they were out of the snow. The droids kept the streets clean of snow, so it wouldn't hinder their movements, and this was now working in the clones favor.

One knee on the ground, Dageer was just barely out of the sight of the droids. By leaning to the side, only his DC-15A and a part of his head were shown. Thankfully, the clanckers were never very good at aiming.

Red lasers passing by his head, Dageer aimed at one of the E-Webs' gunner. It was a long shot. He took a deep breath, and for a moment the noises and the surroundings seemed to vanish, and only his target remained in his vision. Dageer pulled the trigger two times in succession.

Quite a distance away, the droid managing the E-Web was first thrown back after being hit in the chest, and a millisecond later his head acquired a new hole.

Dageer had taken out the gunner, but it was for nothing, since another seppie took control of it.

"The ammo box!"

Cell also fired in the direction of the turret, but his DC-15S had a much shorter range, and less accuracy, so he missed. He did, however, spot the weakness of the E-Web.