Doriana smiled. "Yes, Lieutenant," he said softly. "That should do nicely."
The sounds of distant blaster fire were clearly audible as Tories emerged from the tunnel into the late afternoon sunlight.
"Sounds like it's started," he muttered to Binalie as the two of them raced for the trees where most of the clone troopers who had gone before them had already taken cover. "I just hope they can keep it up until everyone's out."
"Doesn't matter," Binalie said as they reached the trees.
"What do you mean, it doesn't matter?" Tories asked as they squatted beneath the cover of a wide-crested forlaline bush.
"That's the whole point of this exercise."
Binalie shook his head. "Maybe it was your point, and mine," he said, his voice tense. "But it wasn't Roshton's. He has no intention of getting those techs out."
"What are you talking about?" Tories demanded, frowning.
"Didn't you hear him?" Binalie countered. "Him and his soldiers? He asked about cover, and they gave him the stuff north, south, and east. They never said anything about cover to the west; and he never asked."
Tories blinked as the memory of that conversation flashed back to him.
Binalie was right: Roshton hadn't inquired about conditions to the west. Yet west was the obvious direction for anyone fleeing the plant to go.
But if they weren't leaving...
His eyes flicked around, looking for Roshton, understanding suddenly stabbing into his stomach. He spotted the commander standing beside the tunnel entrance, gazing down the stairway as clone troopers continued to file out.
Tories rose to his feet and started toward him. He'd taken perhaps three steps when Roshton lifted a hand and pointed east. And suddenly, the army was on the move, blasters at the ready, running toward the landing ship towering above the treetops. The last of the troopers was passing Roshton when Tories caught up with him. "What are you doing?" he demanded, catching the commander's arm. "This was supposed to be a rescue mission."
"Out of my way, Jedi," Roshton snapped, shrugging off his arm. "Of course it's a rescue mission. It's a rescue of Lord Binalie's precious manufacturing plant."
"But..."
"No buts," Roshton cut him off, gesturing with his blaster. "This is our one chance to get into that landing ship and destroy the droid control matrix.
You want to help, fine, we'd be glad to have you. If not, just get out of our way."
Tories looked back at Binalie, still crouching beside his bush, his face rigid with anger and fear and frustration. "Go back to the estate," he called to the other. "I'll meet you there."
Binalie's eyes flicked over Tories' shoulder toward the plant.
"Go," Tories repeated.
Binalie's expression still looked pinched, but he nodded. "All right."
He slipped away through the trees, and Tories turned back to Roshton.
"I'll come with you," he said, pulling out his lightsaber. "But we will talk about this later."
"Sure," Roshton grunted. "Come on."
They headed off after the soldiers, dodging between trees and around bushes. Occasionally Tories caught a glimpse of white armor ahead of them, but the clone troopers were traveling at least as fast as they were and had a fair head start on top of it. "So what's the plan?" he asked Roshton. "The new revised plan, I mean."
"Laytron's got men up on the plant roof laying down fire," Roshton panted. 'The droids by the landing ship are currently trying to pick them off without damaging the plant. With luck, they should all have their backs to us when we hit them." Tories grimaced. And when they found their army in a crossfire, what would the Neimoidians controlling the droids do? Whatever they deemed necessary to defend themselves, including wrecking the Spaarti plant?
Probably.
It was up to Tories to make sure that didn't happen.
"First elements have reached firing position," Roshton reported, pressing his headset tighter against his ear. "Following units are fanning out. If we're lucky, and they're not spotted-" He broke off, and Tories caught his breath as the volume of the firing ahead suddenly changed. 'They were,"
Roshton growled.
"All units: fire at will."
He leaped ahead, picking up his pace. "Spotted?" Tories asked, catching up with him.
"By one of the guards at the landing ramp," Roshton confirmed as weapons of a different pitch joined the sounds ahead. "But we've still got the advantage."
They ran another fifty meters through the forest. And then, suddenly, they were there.
Square in the middle of a pitched battle.
Roshton ducked into the partial cover of a nearby tree, his blaster already blazing away against the enemy. Tories stopped beside a tree of his own, trying to get a quick sense of the action. Two AAT battle tanks, which had been facing the door into the plant, were trying to turn around to deal with this new threat, their maneuvering slow and awkward as they fought the tangle of underbrush and heavy fire from two directions. Advancing briskly toward Roshton's group of clone troopers were three ranks of super battle droids supported by a few D60 assault droids. The whole line was taking considerable damage, but was still coming.
The tanks, Tories decided, were his first priority. "I'm going in," he called to Roshton over the noise, pointing toward the tanks. "Cover me."
"Right," Roshton shouted back as Tories ignited his lightsaber.
"All units: cover fire left!"
The rain of fire from the clone trooper blasters abruptly changed focus, concentrating all their fury on the left flank of the advancing forces and blowing the droids on that side into a chaos of shards and rubble and smoke.
Gathering his feet beneath him, Tories ducked under the friendly fire and dodged around the end of the disintegrating enemy line.
The droids in the AATs saw him coming, of course. Even as their primary laser cannon began chewing up the landscape along the right flank of the Republic forces, the short-range defensive blasters on either side of the main air-cooling intake began firing at him. Tories' lightsaber flashed in answer, deflecting the bolts away or bouncing them into the backs of the advancing droids whenever he could manage it.
He reached the nearest AAT and jumped up onto the front. Positioning himself in front of the air intake where he was out of reach of both defensive blasters, he stabbed his lightsaber downward through the heavy armor into the forward repulsor disk. The vehicle pitched forward, its nose slamming into the ground like a quadruped that had had both front legs kicked out from under it.
Tories leaped straight up as it dug itself half a meter into the dirt, landing just in front of the top hatch, and with three quick slashes sliced off the primary laser cannon and the two side-mounted secondary laser guns.