Chapter 309 - Under Their Grasp

"Generals Tiplee and Tiplar took a dozen men from their legion, and are planting explosives along some of their key factories. Generals Kenobi and Skywalker have Bad Batch, and Delta Squad, and are doing the same somewhere else.

"Bad Batch? Who are they?"

"A new unit. We trained them. They are shinies, but they are quite skilled. If they survive, we will hear from them again."

"Uhmm... To have you praise them, they must be good. And, if they were trained by Hell Squad, they shouldn't fare too badly."

Dageer only nodded. They had contacted the Jedis a few minutes before, and they had yet to be discovered. After knowing that Hell Squad had walked right into a trap, however, they too had arrived at the conclusion that the seppies also had something planned for them. As such, General Skywalker had ordered his astromech, R2-D2, to take off with their stolen ship, and to meet them at the extraction point. They hadn't had the time to rig all the factories, but it was better to leave while they still had the upper hand.

Of course, it wasn't easy. Almost immediately after that, they received the news that General Tiplar and her group had been ambushed, and lost three men. Simultaneously, General Kenobi said they had been forced to escape after engaging Count Dooku and a bunch of seppies. The explosives were also deactivated, and although Boss was decisive in blowing them up when he saw what the clanckers were doing, all they managed to do was destroy a few conveyer belts and machines.

Everything was going wrong, and, to make it worse, Hell Squad and Ragout were forced to battle a considerable number of droids. Clearly, Ventress had given up on trying to kill them herself.

...

Dageer dropped to the floor, and hid behind a dead B2 unit. Near him, Tech uttered a curse as a laser missed his head by millimeters.

"General! We are pinned down! If we don't move quickly, they are going to swarm us!"

"I know it! All right, Brain, Dab, do you remember Umbara?"

"Which part of it?!"

"Second fortress."

"Oh, no."

"When I move!"

Dageer had no idea of what Ragout was talking about, but judging by the two clone's reaction, it was some crazy maneuver.

It really was.

Up till now, Ragout had been deflecting the lasers fired at him, but suddenly, he let one of his hands go from the lightsaber, and used the Force to make a clancker's carcass float in front of him, as a shield. And then he threw his lightsaber.

Exactly. Spinning in the air, the lightsaber cut half a dozen droids in half, before making a turn, and coming back towards Ragout, killing two more seppies, and distracting the others. Dageer wouldn't have been so impressed if it was only that, however. He knew Jedis could use the Force to control almost anything, so it wasn't that surprising.

But, the moment the lightsaber returned to Ragout's hand, Brain threw three detonators up in the air, already activated. Pushing both his hands forward, Ragout made the detonators fly towards the clanckers. With three lasers from Dab's DC-15x, all fired in less than a second, the grenades blew up, transforming over twenty droids in scrap metal.

"You had your fun on Umbara, hum?"

"Not as much as you would think, commander. The 501st and the 212th had it worse, though. That traitorous Je... The traitor made them fight and kill each other."

Dageer didn't need Brain to tell him that. He had received the reports of the cruel acts the Jedi traitor had performed. By lying to the clones, he convinced them that the Separatist were disguised with the armor of their dead brothers. When the scheme was finally discovered, hundreds had died, by the hands of their own brothers. No clone could live peacefully with that. One of them, Dogma, had executed the traitor, going against the orders to capture him alive. Dageer didn't blame him. He would have done the same.

"You two can discuss that later. We gotta keep moving now. Ugh..."

Being urged by their general, the clones started running again, but suddenly heard Ragout grunt in pain, and stagger. He would have fallen to the ground if Metal didn't hold him.

"General?! What happened?"

"Agh... I guess I wasn't as strong as I thought. The Separatist don't have a soft hand when it comes to their interrogations."

Dageer gestured for Three-four to have a look at Ragout, while the rest of Hell Squad kept watch. It was pretty impressive Ragout had been able to keep himself awake up till now. Any normal person would already have collapsed after almost a month of torture, whatsoever jumping around, and fighting a Sith while using his supernatural powers.

"We can't stop now, general. Can you walk?"

"Yeah. Let's go."

However, Ragout had barely taken a dozen steps when he fell again. Seeing that, Dageer gestured for Cell to help him walk. If they had the option, they would wait for the Jedi to recover. Unfortunately, what they needed the most now was time, and they couldn't waste any.

The group continued, now slower than before, but still as deadly. With cold-blooded efficiency, the clones cut a path through any seppies that stood on their way, and soon, were out of the Battlesphere. The darkness of the tunnels, however, only made it more difficult.

"More seppies coming our way, commander!"

Hell Squad stopped, kneeling on the ground, and taking aim. Shadows appeared on the corners, and they almost fired, but Three-four noticed something before they pressed the trigger.

"Friendlies! Stand down!"

Surely enough, General Tiplar and General Tiplee appeared, followed by Commander Doom and half a dozen other clones. Of the original group, four were missing.

"I am glad to see you are safe, Master Ragout."

"Thank you, Master Tiplar. But, why are you here? Dageer told me you were in a foundry to the south."

"We were. But everything went wrong. The Separatist prepared an ambush for us, and we weren't able to destroy a single assembly line. When they were pursuing us, we jumped on the first transport we saw, and it brought us here."

"Master Kenobi and Master Skywalker had more luck than us. They managed to evade Count Dooku, and are heading this way. R2 and Hondo are also bringing the shuttle."

"They can't do that. This was a well-thought trap. They certainly know our ship."

"Don't worry. Apparently Hondo hijacked another one. This pirate has proven to be quite useful."

All the while the Jedis were talking, the clones kept watch. Luckily, they weren't attacked for a while. Even if Geonosis was one of their Core planets, the Separatist couldn't leave too many of their forces there. The Clone Wars were in a state where every soldier counted. Besides, who would dare to attack Geonosis?

After a while, they went up to the surface, where the clones could fight more comfortably.

"Ship arriving!"

"Calm down, they are on our side."

The new Maxillipede Shuttle lowered it's ramp, and Hondo appeared. The pirate had a huge smile on his face.

"Hello, my friends! It looks like you could use a... Ouch! Why did you do that, you pile of trash?!"

A blue and white droid, which was no taller than Dageer's waist, bumped into Hondo, and whistled anxiously for the Republic group to board the ship.

...

A few minutes later, having picked up Delta Squad, Bad Batch, and the two Jedis, the shuttle left Geonosis, and entered hyperspace. The meticulously crafted trap by the Separatist failed, albeit not entirely. Their prisoner and his saviors escaped under their grasp.