"Okay," Corf said; and to Tories' surprise, he stepped forward and gave the Jedi a quick hug. "Be careful."
Tories had spent part of the day wondering about Laytron's seemingly casual choice of timing for the operation. It was only as he slipped off the Binalie estate and made his way westward through the edge of Foulahn City that he realized the timing hadn't been nearly as random as he'd first thought. At sunset, most of the enemy forces surrounding Spaarti would have to face directly into the setting sun to see Roshton's quiet exit from Outlink Four.
Even droid optical sensors had trouble with direct sunlight, and Tories'
estimation of the young lieutenant had gone up as he realized the young man had taken that weakness into account.
Twice along the way, Tories had to take quick cover as a pair of droids on wide picket marched past. But he'd planned for possible delays when he'd scheduled his wake-up call, and he reached the flat, sod-covered roof of Outlink Four with time to spare.
Binalie was waiting beneath a cluster of trees, along with a pair of armored clone troopers. "Master Tories," Binalie greeted the Jedi, his voice and sense tight with nervous anticipation.
"Anyone see you?"
"No one shot at me, anyway," Tories told him, eyeing the camouflaged roof. "We aren't going to have to raise the whole roof to get in, are we?"
Binalie shook his head. 'There's a service stairway along the side."
"Then let's get to it," Tories said, peering into the sky. A dozen STAPs were circling in the east, patrolling the sky over the plant and the landing ship beside it.
"Shouldn't we wait for the diversion to start?" Binalie asked.
"We can't afford to," Tories said. "We'll need every bit of diversion time just to move all those people out of the plant."
"You're right." Binalie took a deep breath, and set off across the open ground. "Follow me."
The section of roof over the service stairway swung open with gratifying speed and silence. Binalie led the way down the steps, then waited at the bottom for the others to catch up before using the small control panel attached to the railing to seal the top again. "All the wiring is in place," he said as he flicked on a pair of glow rods and handed one to Tories. "But I thought running any power in here, even just enough to handle the lights, might be risky."
"Good point," Tories agreed, turning to the clone troopers. "You two stay here and guard the exit," he ordered.
"Acknowledged," one of them said.
Tories nodded, and he and Binalie set off at a quick jog down the empty tunnel. Ten minutes later, they reached the other end.
"There should be a set of pumps right here, and the intake for the tunnel's ventilator system about here," Binalie said, pointing out spots to the left and right of the wall. "It would make this operation a whole lot cheaper if you could manage to miss both of them."
"I'll do my best," Tories said, igniting his lightsaber. Pushing the tip of the blade carefully through the center of Binalie's indicated safe zone, he began to cut.
A minute later had carved a man-sized rectangle. Closing down the lightsaber, he stretched out with the Force and deftly pulled away the halfmeter- thick section of wall.
To find himself gazing down the muzzles of a half dozen blaster rifles.
"Commander Roshton?" he called.
The muzzles instantly lifted. "About time," Roshton said, stepping into view in front of his troops, a grim look on his face. He was equipped for action, Tories noted, wearing his usual clone trooper comlink headset and a pair of bolstered blasters on his belt.. "I was starting to wonder if you'd been caught."
"What are you talking about?" Binalie asked. "We're right on time."
"You're two minutes late," Roshton corrected tartly. "If Lieutenant Laytron is on schedule, the diversion will be starting in fourteen minutes. We want to be already moving people out the other end of the tunnel by then."
"Then we'd better get started," Tories said. "Your people ready to move?"
In answer, Roshton lifted a hand. The clone troopers who'd been pointing their rifles at Tories lifted the weapons into carry position across their chests and passed single-file through the newly made opening. Reforming into ranks of three, they set off down the tunnel at a quick jog. They were followed by another squad of six, and another, and another. "What about the techs?" Tories asked as the fifth batch of troopers jogged past him.
"When will they be coming through?"
"When we've got enough firepower at the other end to protect them,"
Roshton grunted, stepping through himself and giving Binalie a nudge. "Come on, both of you. Our turn to move." The clone troopers who'd gone on ahead of them were waiting at the far end of the tunnel when Tories, Binalie, and Roshton arrived. 'Two minutes to go," the commander said, consulting his chrono. "What's cover like up there?"
Binalie opened his mouth to answer - "Open space for three meters to the north, twenty meters to the south," one of the clone troopers they'd left behind on guard duty spoke up. 'Tree cover begins five meters to the east and remains intermittent."
"Not perfect, but it'll do," Roshton decided. "Line up on the stairway.
Lord Binalie, is there any trick to operating the exit door?"
"The controls are right there," Binalie said, pointing to the panel, his tone suddenly sounding strange. "But-"
"But what?" Roshton demanded, glaring at him.
Binalie threw a quick, ambiguous glance at Tories. "Nothing," he muttered. "It'll keep."
"Fine." Roshton looked up the stairway as his troopers headed up. "Get in position," he called softly. "We break cover at the sound of the first shot."
"Two minutes to go," Lieutenant Laytron said, consulting his chrono. "All squads, report by number."
He fell silent, listening intently to the reports coming in over his headset. Doriana found himself gazing off to the north, across the open grassland and the picket line of combat droids standing guard there. The force was largely a token one, of course, since there were no doors or windows on the southern side of the plant. The main droid army, plus all their remaining AAT battle tanks, was concentrated around the more vulnerable eastern, western, and northern approaches.
But even a single person or machine on that forbidden stretch of lawn was anathema to the Cranscoc twillers who were the actual heart of the Spaarti operation. They were probably still twitching their indignation, in fact, over all those droids standing around out there. But of course, the Separatist commanders didn't care about that.
On the other hand, since the plant's tooling was still set for the cloning cylinders the Republic forces had been sent to Cartao to manufacture, Roshton probably didn't much care if the twillers were upset, either. Two huge political systems, locked in a massive battle of wills and weapons and death, completely oblivious as to how their actions affected those around them. But those actions frequently involved a lot of unexpected collateral damage. That was a lesson someone was going to learn today.
"One minute," Laytron said. "Stand ready."
Doriana took a deep breath, willing calmness into himself. He had carried out his part of the plan, he knew, maneuvering both sides to precisely the right place and the right time. The rest was now out of his hands, and he could feel the churning sense of frustration that always came upon him at times like this.
"And... go."
With the multi-level roar of a dozen different engine models, a dozen commandeered civilian landspeeders leaped into view from concealment among the hills dotting the landscape, each loaded with anywhere from four to eight clone troopers. Quickly, they maneuvered around their hills to form an attack line on the southern edge of the grassland. Then, as the enemy pickets and the high-flying STAPs seemed to take notice, the engine pitches changed, and the vehicles set off at full speed toward the plant.
"Stand by, cover fire," Laytron ordered. The STAPs were swooping in to the attack, their twin blasters spitting fire at the landspeeders. Ahead of the advancing landspeeders, the picket forces were drawing inward to form a solid counterline between the clone troopers and the plant. Their blasters opened up, too, searching for the range...