Commander Toth knew that sound. That ominous, rolling metal sound. In fact, he was one of few outside the clone ranks of the Empire who did know that sound, the thing that made the sound, and how deadly that thing was. Destroyer droids, he thought. This mission is over. Of course, it had been over since the droid starfighters first appeared over the CR90 corvette Shapani Flyer, half buried in the wastes of Raxus Prime. With its once gleaming hull now faded and brown, it blended in nicely with the surrounding mounds of old, rusted starships, components, and assorted junk. But apparently they had found it anyway—whoever "they" were. Toth had never expected to see Separatists at all, much less here, on Raxus Prime, and in force. Where had they come from? More important, what did they want? "Jenth, you all right out there?" Toth said into his comlink. His voice was ordinarily deep and authoritative, but at the moment it was merely a whisper. He was inside the Shapani Flyer, taking cover in a ladder well along one of the narrow, dark corridors, made all the darker now that he had shut off his glow lamp.
"Yeah, I don't think they see me," Jenth's voice replied, slightly muffled by Toth's hand over the speaker. Jenth was outside, having thoroughly camoflauged himself on one of the mounds of junk that overlooked the corvette. He had a superb vantage point, and watched through the scope of his sniper rifle as the tanks and troops assumed positions around the site, and as landing ships touched down and unloaded first the destroyer droids, then a squad of B1s.
Thus, it hadn't surprised Toth when the Separatists (or whoever they were) boarded the Shapani Flyer with destroyer droids—but the sound of them rolling down the quiet corridors was still unnerving. Toth was glad that very few of these beasts had survived the Clone Wars, but apparently not few enough. He held his breath and pressed himself against the ladder as closely as he could, as far as he could from the corridor as the droids became louder, and louder, and then their dark forms rolled past him with a whoosh of air. Two of them, at first. Then another two. But there were probably more. As soon as the sound of the droidekas receded down the corridor, he clicked his comlink to 'talk.' "How many of those rollers came in?" he asked.
"I saw twelve of those," Jenth came back, "And twelve droids of another sort. Security droids, maybe. Kind of skeletal looking."
"Battle droids," Toth shook his head in the darkness, "Baktoid 1's, by the sound of it."
"Should I know that?" Jenth asked, a bit drily. He apparently didn't appreciate the Commander's adventure down memory lane.
"Okay," Toth said, "So, any chance of sneaking out the way I came in?" It was a possibility, Toth thought. He heard an explosion from somewhere in the ship before the droids came in, meaning that, predictably, they'd probably blasted one of the airlocks and come in that way. Toth, on the other hand, had cut his way in through one of the escape pod bays (since the escape pods had long ago been removed by Jawa scavengers, it was simple enough to fusion cut his way through the old, rusted hatch into the escape pod bay. It was an inconspicuous way in, and more importantly to Toth at the moment, an inconspicuous way out.
"I don't know," Jenth said, skeptically, panning his sniper rifle across the line of tanks, "They have the whole site covered pretty good. I don't even know how I'm getting out of here without them seeing me."
"I could make a distraction for you, maybe."
"Or we can find out what they want," Jenth suggested, "Could be simple enough."
Talking to Separatists, Toth thought with disgust. It wasn't something he wanted to consider, but Jenth was right that he did have a tendency to shoot first and think later. And it was possible that they had just come to salvage the Shapani Flyer, like he and Jenth had, and that they weren't looking for a fight. It made sense, since if they were Separatists they would probably want to keep a low profile. Landers, tanks, and troops would say otherwise, though, Toth thought darkly. But he didn't have much of a choice.
"Okay," he said into the comlink, "Stay where you are for now. I'm going to find out what they want. I'm going to cover myself here, though, in case this goes wrong. If it does, and I don't answer my comlink in, say, ten minutes, I'm probably dead. So, you know, don't wait up."
"That's very helpful," Jenth said, drily.
"You know, if you weren't such a good shot, I might call you good for nothing, Jenth."
"That's not fair," Jenth said, "I'm great in bed, too."
"Yeah, well, the bantha might disagree if it could talk."
"Commander," Jenth said, his voice suddenly heavier, "Don't die."
"Have I ever died before?" he said, sarcastically. "Toth, out."
And then he was on the go, moving quietly down the dim corridor and listening closely for droids. He hadn't brought much with him in his satchel, except for his blaster pistol and a few small, explosive charges for the same reason the droids had—to blast his way through sealed doors or collapsed corridors if need be. That, and he had some spare power packs for his blaster. Toth knew, as any good resistor should, that if you rigged two power packs together and removed the sturm dowells on them, it made a decent grenade. Then he remembered the coolant drums he had passed on the way inside. I can take them, he realized. I can take them all. But some good it would do—even if he destroyed all 12 droidekas and all 12 of the battle droids, he was still surrounded by tanks.
Toth ducked into the maintenance closet he had passed earlier, and rummaged through the small drums of coolant that he'd seen on a rack on the wall inside. Most of them had been emptied by scavengers, except for the ones on the upper shelf. Toth smiled. Jawas. He grabbed one of the drums and unscrewed the cap, then pulled out his blaster pistol as he made his way, quietly, back into the corridor. He heard destroyer droids rolling through the confines of the ship, but they didn't seem to be getting closer as Toth, meanwhile, got closer to the airlock through which they had come. It was easy enough to find by the acrid smell of the explosives they'd used, and ugly, brown light flooding into the corridor from outside. He could hear the B1 droids outside now, apparently acting as a rear guard and communicating orders to each other in some indecipherable mechanical language.
He crouched, setting the foul smelling coolant drum onto the deck as he pulled the power packs from his satchel. He rigged them as a grenade in the manner he'd described, but didn't pull the sturm dowells—the "pin," so to speak—just yet. He gently turned the drum on its side and let the flammable coolant spill out onto the floor, then he stood, slung his satchel over his shoulder once more, held the "grenade" in one hand and pulled his blaster pistol from its holster with the other, and walked toward the entrance of the Shapani Flyer. He waited for the inevitable "Halt!"
The battle droids were in front of him, near the entrance. The destroyer droids, it seemed, were still inside the ship. And a few meters behind him, ready to stop the destroyer droids, if necessary, from rolling up behind him, was the pool of coolant on the floor. He forced himself to take a slow, measured breath. His right hand sweat on the grip of his blaster, while his left, mechanical hand held firmly to the power packs, ready to use them if he had to.
