Chapter 315 - The Grand Offensive (1/2)
”Wake up, brother.”
Slowly, he opened his eyes, and was greeted by darkness. Amidst the dark, there were a few flashes of light, which showed him the faces of a few other clones.
”Ugh... Where am I?”
”I would tell you if I knew it, Jesse.”
Sitting up, Jesse noticed General Skywalker's padawan, Ahsoka Tano, was also with the clones. Captain Rex, two members of the 212th, and four of Hell Squad were looking at him.
”What happened?”
”When the seppie blew himself up, he also opened some kind of cave system, and we fell in. You hit the sand on your way down. Burnout wasn't so lucky.”
The one who spoke was Cell. He was limping, and being supported by Tech, who had a broken arm. Following the direction the scout's head pointed, he saw one of his brothers laying face-down on the ground. His visor was cracked, and his head... It wasn't a pretty scene.
”Come on, Jesse. We have to find the others. Can you walk?”
”Yeah. I think my shoulder is dislocated, though.”
”We will see about that later.”
Jesse only nodded, not complaining. Dageer had a broken leg, and yet, he wasn't even frowning, so how could he?
”How many fell?”
”We don't know. All our comlinks broke, so we can't enter in contact with them. But I think we all did.”
”Mine is still operational, sir. I don't know for how long, however. It's pretty damaged.”
When he said that, everyone turned to him. They had seen the cracked comlink, so they thought it wasn't working, like theirs.
”Give it to me. Master, can you hear me? Obi-Wan? Anyone there?”
”Cough... No need to yell, Snips. I'm here. Just... Cough... Cough... A little battered. Obi-Wan is here too, but I can't get him to wake up.”
General Skywalker's shaky voice answered his padawan, and she let out a sigh of relief.
”Can you activate your tracker?”
”I will try.”
”Hold on, master. I'm coming.”
------------------------
Following the increasingly strong signal that Jesse's comlink was receiving, the group found where the two Jedis were. Midway, one of the clones of the 501st sent by Brain found them, but, before joining the others, they decided to help General Skywalker and General Kenobi.
The Jedis had ended up buried beneath tons of boulders and stones. It was only by using the Force to create some kind of dome that General Skywalker was able to save himself and General Kenobi.
”Just wait a little longer, Master Skywalker. We will start removing the rocks. How are you and Master Obi-Wan?”
”I'm okay. Obi-Wan hit his head hard, but he will pull through. Kite and Drum are wounded too. Fluke didn't make it.”
Delegating the job of removing the smaller stones to the clones, Ahsoka started using the Force to make the bigger ones levitate. Luckily, her broken arm didn't affect her abilities with this mysterious power.
Dageer was forced to stay out of this one, since he could barely stand up. Deciding not to waste time, he started to head to where Brain and the majority of his brothers were, bringing the other wounded with him.
When his right-hand man saw how Dageer looked, all he did was give a salute. The commander shrugged, unable to hide a grin. Only clones could look at each other in such a battered and wounded state, and think it was normal.