Chapter 118 - A Rash Apprentice Causes Death

With the last thirty seconds slipping away on the clock, all the clones got in position. Maybe the droids noticed it, maybe they just knew the clones had to attack soon, but they also strengthened their fortifications.

"Hell Squad, ready?"

"Yes, sir."

"More than ever."

"Let's get those seppies."

"General Ragout, we will get out first, all right?"

"No. You asked me to defend from the lasers coming from uphill. I will be the vanguard."

Ragout pulled out his lightsaber, but didn't activate it yet. Hearing the young Togruta talk with such strength behind his words, Dageer didn't say anything else. In fact, he felt it would be an insult to ask the padawan to stay on the back.

Hell Squad looked at the padawan with a whole new level of respect. If it was the first battle of the padawan, they might have considered him harsh, and maybe even stupid. But Ragout had been in the trenches fighting together with the clones. He knew how dangerous it was, but still wanted to be the vanguard. That was the mentality of a soldier, and the troopers respected it.

"Dageer, I will start the attack. Are the men ready?"

General Di asked this through the communicator. Dageer signaled Captain Narza and Lieutenant Fondor.

"Just give us the order, general."

"Very well. All troops, attack!"

General Di's orders were transmitted to every clone in the battlefield. With a collective yell, the clones climbed up the trench's side. Many of them were shot down immediately, as the blasters and turrets of the Separatist bolted into action.

Suddenly, the battlefield was filled with action and noise. Screams, explosions, orders being yelled. It was like a Gyyary waking up after a six-month-long hibernation. Angry and noisy.

Ragout jumped out of the trench with a somersault, at the same time turning on his green lightsaber. He swung his lightsaber in a diagonal, from the top right to the left bottom. Two red lasers were reflected, one of them hitting the B1 unit who fired it, and the other flew off in the distance.

Dageer climbed the trench's side, and opened fire. He and Hell Squad weren't to be outdone by Ragout, neither wanted to. But they had to admit the padawan was a force to be reckoned with. In a matter of seconds, he had gotten to the third trench, and used the Force to push the droids away.

Ragout turned around and cut two droids in half. Their bodies fell apart, revealing even more clanckers. Ragout made a pulling motion, and one droid flew directly into his lightsaber.

Nevertheless, the padawan was getting surrounded. He deflected some more lasers, and cut down some more droids, but he would soon be overwhelmed. That is why Hell Squad came to help.

On one side, there was an explosion caused by Brain's thermal detonators, and it destroyed five B1 battle droids, and one B2 unit. On the other side, two droid heads popped out of their sockets, thanks to Dab's sniper shots. Cell and Tech were shoulders to shoulder, spraying the droids with blue lasers.

Metal couldn't really use his Z-6 Rotary because Ragout was in the line of fire, but he had a backup blaster, a DC-15S. And Dageer used his trusted DC-15A, aiming for headshots. Even Kuvu, the medic and temporary addition to Hell Squad got in the mix, and took down some clanckers.

All of that happened in less than five seconds, just enough time for a person blink thrice, and for Hell Squad annihilate almost three dozen droids.

Dageer slid into the trench, taking a couple more shots at the droids. Ragout seemed to have forgotten their objective, and was advancing at the droids, so Dageer held him.

"General! We need to keep going! We will leave the rest of the trench for General Di and our troops!"

"That is not it! Look!"

Ragout pointed to some dead clones, with half their bodies inside the trench. Dageer didn't understand at first, but then he saw one of the soldiers move a little, trying to crawl forward. Then he saw a droid aiming at the clone.

"Dab! Right, sharp!"

Dab turned immediately, and fixed his aim at the droid. The powerful laser from his DC-15x torn open the side of the droid, almost splitting it in half.

"We really need to go, general. We have medics for the wounded, but going after them in the middle of the battle will only get us killed. And we have an objective, remember?"

"But... we can't leave him..."

"He is a soldier, he will hold on until help arrives. Let's go!"

There was pain on the padawan's eyes when he turned away from the wounded clone. After all, he was still a child. A powerful, brave one, but still young.

"Sorry, brother."

Dageer whispered at the clone, so low only he himself could hear it. The clone had a piece of scrap metal puncturing his neck. Dageer knew that even if he received immediate treatment, the trooper wouldn't survive.

Leaving the clone behind, Hell Squad followed Ragout, and left the third trench for the rest of the army. The distance between the third and the fourth trenches was bigger than the distance between the second a d the third by about twenty-five meters. That didn't seem like much, but it could cost Hell Squad their lives if they weren't careful.

"General Ragout! We can't go on a straight line as we did before! We have to try not to stand off too much!"

Since they had been in the middle of the clone army up till now, Hell Squad and the padawan hadn't been spotted yet. But a lone group of clones crossing between trenches would catch a lot of attention.

"Follow me!"

However, Ragout seemed to have other plans, and totally ignored Dageer's advice. He spun his lightsaber so fast that it turned in a bright circle. It was very eye-catching, but super effective. Every laser that hit the spinning lightsaber was reflected back, and not one crossed Ragout's defense.

It also did the opposite of what Dageer wanted. Not only the droids in the fourth trench noticed them, but some of the third also did. In a span of seconds, Hell Squad was being attacked for both sides.

Dageer couldn't understand why Ragout had done that, but there was no going back.

"Kuvu, Cell, Metal! On me!"

Dageer took aim at the droids in the third trench, hoping to reduce the number of their enemies. His focus wasn't to kill all the clanckers, but just suppress them until Hell Squad was in the fourth trench.

Miraculously, they all managed to get to the fourth trench before something went wrong. While Ragout had jumped in the trench together with Dab, Brain and Tech, Dageer and the others were a few steps away.

When Dageer was about to jump inside the trench, Kuvu slammed into him, and they both tumbled down. Dageer hit the bottom of the trench head-first.

"Kuvu! What was that?! Kuvu! Ohhh, damn it!!!"

Before he could get angry, Dageer saw why Kuvu had crashed into him. Two black holes had appeared in his back. The poor clone would never fight again.

"Come on, Dageer! What are you waiting for?! We are giving them a beati... No!!!"