Assault on Dxun

"Where are those damned Jedi?" That's what everybody wanted to know. We were two days out from Camp Rancor, and only a month off the Ravager. We were moving toward Hill 875 through the dense Dxun jungle. I didn’t have to ask though. I knew. We were Republic soldiers. We were Revan’s bantha fodder, something for the Mandies to empty their clips into, waste their ammo on so the Jedi could come through when they were good and ready and clean up what was left. So our low level bombing runs were accomplishing zilch, getting shot down by hidden AD turrets, meanwhile those of us pounding the ground were supposed to somehow clear out the Mandies who were dug in and waiting for us with anti-personal turrets and heavy repeater emplacements. You couldn’t even see what you were shooting at. Revan was a schutta. I didn’t care what anybody else said.

As it was, my platoon, what was left of it, was cut off from the rest of the battalion by jungle like I’d never seen before. See, I’m from Tatooine. We ain’t got no plant life there, so I don’t know how anybody can live here. It’s not just the foliage, not just the humidity which makes you sweat as you as you get off the assault shuttle, no, it was the beasts too. Cannoks, Boma and some other critters that I don’t even know what they’re called. Vicious and nasty things. The cannoks were worst of all. They’d killed half my squad alone, maybe not wanting to leave much for the Mandies. But there was only four of us left. The Sergeant, Gaiar, Me and Zelba. We’d just killed a pack of three cannoks when all of a sudden we started taking fire from the top of a ridge about ten meters off. The Mandalorians must have had an emplacement up there, so we took cover and started to return fire. And if that wasn’t enough, it started to rain again. Damn jungle.

Suddenly from behind me, I hear a hiss and a loud humming noise. I barely had time to look over my shoulder as something brown jumped over me and then took another huge jump to the top of the ridge before I even knew what was happening. There was a flash of red moving with it. We looked around at each other kind of in a daze, but then we heard the sounds of Mandalorian Rippers firing and then screams. It was over in a minute, silence returning to the jungle once more. We strained our eyes to see was going on up there, but the rain wasn’t making it any easier.

The next thing we knew she was behind us. A woman in the robes of a Jedi. I’d actually only seen one at a distance one time, and otherwise didn’t know anything about them except that they were never around when you needed them. Until now. Can’t say it made me feel any better about our situation though.

But there was something strange about her. Her skin was grey and stretched kind of taut as if from age, but she didn’t look that old. Her eyes were also grey so you could never tell exactly what she was looking at, just what general direction. Still a nice body on her. Didn’t know what her problem was, but curves wasn’t one of them.

The Sergeant approached her. “Thank you, Sir, we‘d..” he said, snapping a salute.

“Shut up!” came the reply before he could finish what he was saying. “Why isn’t this unit moving forward?”

“Sir, we were pinned down, plus we’ve suffered heavy casualties. We need an evac.”

“I don’t want to hear your problems, Sergeant. What you need to do is keep moving forward. I’m taking charge of this unit, and I’m telling you that we are close to a Mandalorian outpost. And we will be taking it down.”

“But Sir...”

“Just move your squad out, Sergeant. I’m not going to tell you again.”

The thing was, I never understood why the Jedi got put in charge of the whole war, not even being part of the military. How could they just let Revan take over. What did she know?

The squad started moving off down the trail we’d found with me second to last, and the Jedi bringing up the rear. I kept an eye on that ridge in case the Jedi had missed anything. When I was kid, all the stories I heard about the Jedi was that they were nice people who helped those in need and stuff. But here we were with a real ballbuster, I thought to myself.

The next thing I knew, something hit me hard from behind and I fell forward into a puddle. It couldn’t have been the Jedi because she was too far back, but still she was looking at me funny. I wiped my face with my sleeve.

“You got a problem...Private First Class, Azog Mezzeroth?”

“How do you know me?” I asked

“I know a lot of things. Like the fact that you better keep moving.”

I was getting tired of her attitude. Maybe the Sergeant would put up with it, but I...

“You’d what?” she asked, finishing the thought for me. She stepped closer, those dull grey eyes glaring at me, and suddenly I felt uneasy, cold like. “You don’t want to test me, Private.”

“Mezzeroth,” came the Sergeant’s voice over my shoulder. “Let it go. Keep moving.”

“Yes, Sergeant,” I said, giving the Jedi a final look and then turning to rejoin the squad who’d begun to move again. I didn’t even know then that Jedi could read minds.

‘That’s not all I can do,’ I heard her voice in my mind now. I shook it off and concentrated on keeping an eye out for the enemy.

After awhile, up ahead, I could see the Sergeant give the three fingers up indicating enemy contact. I could smell smoke. So we moved 10 meters off the trail into the woods. The Jedi followed along, having nothing to say. From there, we moved forward more slowly now, observing minimal noise protocols.

Shortly after that, the Sergeant called us to a halt. He’d spotted something up ahead, and straining my eyes through the undergrowth, I could barely make out a clearing up ahead. We stood there listening in silence. I removed my helmet quickly, wiping the sweat from my forehead.

That’s when I heard the twig snap off to our left, and suddenly blaster fire erupted all around us.. Several Mandies dropped out of stealth mode. They had us surrounded. Gaiar and Zelba went down immediately. The Sergeant and I dropped behind the thick foliage for cover and began to open up on them with our blaster rifles. The Jedi was suddenly no longer in sight. I settled down in a crouch behind a small boulder and squeezed off a couple of rounds right into the chest plate of an Mandy who thought he was sneaking up on me. He fell, his body twisting in an unnatural position on the ground. I pulled a frag grenade from my belt and hefted it toward a pair of Mandies off to our left. The grenade exploded at their feet, kicking up leaves and water, but didn‘t do much else. That was the Republic Military for you. Giving us weapons which couldn’t even penetrate their armor. And here I was, a green recruit, on my first mission. They’d been shooting at the Sergeant, but now they leveled their blaster rifles at me. I only just dived for cover behind a large tree when their blaster bolts were kicking up steam and burnt foliage all around me.

It was quickly getting smoky, the thick jungle not allowing it to escape past the canopy of the trees. It got to be hard to see in there, and I almost didn't notice the Mandy creeping up behind me as the other two attempted to box me in.

The Jedi suddenly appeared, hacking the creeping one down. Something about the color of her lightsaber reminded me of something. A couple of weeks ago, Zelba had given me a grenade that he said he took off of a dead Mandy. Called it a plasma grenade. So I figured, why not? I pulled it out and lofted it over toward the two Mandies. I saw them pause and motion to it as if joking about it. One of them might have been shaking with laughter even, but not for long. While they were distracted I rolled toward where the Sergeant was sitting with his back to a tree. Then I heard the grenade go off, felt the heat of it through the brush, creeping over rocks and other obstacles to get to me. I took a quick peek over the rock I was behind and saw the charred remains of several trees and a large black spot on the ground. The two figures in blackened armor were lying in the middle of it all.

"I think we got'em, Sarge." I said, watching the Jedi slice the remaining one in half. But I wasn’t really able to appreciate the moment. I hadn’t noticed earlier, but the Sergeant had taken a blaster shot dead in the forehead. And now it was just me and the Jedi.

And someone else. I heard a grunt from a short distance away. I saw that the Mandalorian I had shot was stirring. I crawled over to him and saw that the blaster shot had given him a non-fatal wound. So I pulled out my medpack. Somehow he pulled himself up to a sitting up position, leaning heavily against a tree. Before I could say anything, he’d taken the medpack out of my hands.

Removing his helmet and the upper part of his armor, I could see he was a human. I don’t what I expected. Nobody’d ever talked about what race they were or what they looked like when I was in Basic or on the Ravager. To us they were just the enemy. Sometimes I’d imagined that there was some sort of horrid monster underneath all that armor. Maybe something like a cross between a human, a rancor and a womp rat. But he was just a regular guy, and now he applied the field dressing himself. The wound looked nasty, but he’d make it.

That’s when the Jedi showed up again, lightsaber out. She made as if to run him through, but I positioned myself between them.

“Stop!” I said, putting up my hands. “He’s already wounded. There’s no need to kill him.”

“We can’t take prisoners, and we can’t just leave him here to report our position to the Mandalorians. He has to die, right now.”

I saw her close her hand as if making a fist, and then I heard the Mandy choking. I looked and saw him reaching for his throat, obviously unable to get oxygen. Somehow the Jedi was doing it, though I never could understand the bits and pieces I’d heard about the Force. And I’d never heard of anyone using the Force like that. I’ll admit I was torn as to what to do. I wanted the Mandies beaten as bad as anyone, dead if need be. I’d had no qualms about killing them when I finally faced them in combat, but this was not how you treated a wounded combatant. Not that I believed in honor and all that, the way I heard the Mandies were supposed to, but this was just wrong. The guy deserved better than this even if he was the enemy.

So I stood up, not really thinking and rushed at the Jedi, “I said stop and I meant it, Jedi!“

But she merely sidestepped me and opened and closed that fist again in my direction. “I should have done this much sooner,” she said coldly. “You haven’t what it takes to win this war, Private. You can die with him."

The next thing I knew I was I was being lifted off the ground, and then it was my turn to gasp for breath. It felt like a droid was crushing my throat with one of it’s metal graspers. I felt a burning sensation in my chest. Circles appeared in front of my eyes, and I could feel myself beginning to black out. Just then, somewhere in the darkness, as I was getting ready to die, I heard a Mandalorian Ripper fire. I felt myself drop to the ground, landing hard, and I was sure that I was dead. How long I laid there for, I’ve no idea. It seemed like hours but probably was more like minutes.

“Can you walk?” I heard a voice ask, but it wasn’t the Jedi. But I opened my eyes, and saw the body of the Jedi lying nearby.

“She’s dead, soldier,” the Mandy said. “She had no honor. But you have fought like a Mandalorian today. You have shown that the Republic is a honorable enemy worth doing battle with.”

Not sure what else to say, I finally came up with, “Private First Class, Azog Mezzeroth. 77th Infantry.”
“I am Zolok of Clan Harad.” I saw him taking the Jedi’s lightsaber, probably as a trophy.

“So what happens now?”

“Now, we rejoin our sides, and perhaps I will have the honor of meeting you in battle again some time.” With that, he simply turned and walked away into the jungle.

So I pulled out my trenching tool and dug a large enough hole for the rest of my squad. I couldn’t just leave them out there for the beasts to eat or to rot away in that jungle. So I put them to rest the best I could. All except the Jedi. Her I left lying in the jungle. I just couldn't bring myself to touch her after what I'd experienced. At that moment, I was having a harder time seeing who the enemy was, the Mandalorians or the Jedi. If they were all like her, then it wouldn't be a hard decision at all. I would certainly never trust Revan after she sent us out here to die. All the same, I went back for a final glance at her, before moving on.

But there would be no final glance because the body was gone. No trace of her to was to be seen, and I suddenly felt very exposed. I crouched down, blaster rifle at the ready and took a look around, but there was nothing. So I slipped into the jungle, attempting to make as little noise as possible, moving in the general direction the Mandalorian had. All the while, I was throwing glances over my shoulder. Every minute, I expected to feel that choking sensation that I'd felt before. I felt certain that she must be watching me, waiting for an opportune moment to strike, though she didn't seem like the type who liked waiting. I reached the clearing and saw the remains of the Mandies camp.

It consisted of a cooking fire and some cases of ammo, arranged in front of a bunker entrance. Cautiously I crept forward into the clearing, keeping an eye out for anything alive. Nothing stirred as I moved past the fire and into the bunker entrance. I kept my blaster rifle moving back and forth as my eyes swept the inside of the structure.

Inside was more ammo and some rations. So I restocked, grabbed a couple of grenades and some rations. I had a taste of what the Mandies were eating. It wasn't bad. Better than the womp rat in a can that the Republic fed us. And even some ale from Onderon to wash it down.

Also there was a set of Mandalorian Assault armor. I slipped that on, having been impressed by its resistance to the frag grenade. It was bulky, but at least I felt like I had some protection against blasters. Didn't know how it would hold up to a lightsaber. Didn't want to find out either. And feeling like myself again, I got and went outside as I could see the Sun was beginning to dip below the horizon.

Lucky somebody had taken her lightsaber away, because when I got back outside, there she was. She was standing a little crooked by the fire, holding her side and glaring at me with hatred that I could feel within my very soul, it seemed. I could see the black mark on her robes and on her skin where she'd been shot by the Mandy. But it suddenly got colder out there, and I felt my courage giving way.

“Traitor,” she said, through clenched teeth. “You’ll die for helping the Mandalorian.”

“Not if I kill you first, Jedi,“ I said, pretending to have more courage than I did. And before it completely gave out, I opened fire on her with the blaster rifle counting on her injury to slow her down.

It did, but just barely. She dodged to the side and stretched out her free hand towards me, wincing in obvious pain as she did so. Some enormous invisible force ripped the rifle out of my hands and hurled it into the bush. And then I did feel the invisible force grabbing my throat again, but I was better prepared this time.

I grabbed one of the grenades off my belt and tossed it toward her. She jumped to the side, releasing her grip on me, but a large amount of white stuff came out of it, engulfing her part way and suddenly hardening. Must have been one of those adhesive grenades, I’d heard about but never got a chance to so fine. She was partially stuck in the white goop, so I ran towards the edge of the clearing, but again I felt the Force grab and slam me to the ground before I could make it to the tree line. Yes, I was becoming quite the expert on the Force and would be sure if to tell my battalion about it if I made it out of there. I looked back, and she was simultaneously trying to free herself from the goop and keeping an eye on me.

“You can’t get away. Here is where you die. No one will ever find your body.” She seemed so confident. I guess if I was a Jedi, I’d be too.

Except for one thing. She was looking more and more exhausted by the minute, her wounds and the goop draining away the last of her energy. I knew it wouldn’t hold her long though, so I threw the other grenade toward her and while she was dealing with that, I took off for the tree line again and around the hill the bunker was built into. I ran through the jungle like the Kath hounds of the nether regions were chasing me. They might as well have been. I heard the grenade go off, just in time for me to run into another group of Mandalorians who had me trapped. Zolok was with them, and he nodded to me. Having no weapons on me, I simply threw up my hands. I felt at least somewhat confident they wouldn’t shoot an unarmed combatant. I was wrong.

It wasn’t but a few seconds later the Jedi came running around the embankment just in time to catch the full effect of their Rippers opening up. I fell to the ground and rolled to the side to get out of the way, but she wasn’t so lucky. They stitched her good, and her body spun hard to the ground, wisps of smoke drifting off of her. This time they made sure she was dead, firing several more blaster bolts into her corpse. Then with a final glance toward me, they activated their stealth fields and were gone.

“Hey guys,” I called out. “Could you at least...” But I didn’t bother to finish the question. They were gone, but thankfully, so was the Jedi. I had a look at her and there was no question about it this time. Just to be sure, I buried her. Thing is, you think you’re joining the military to fight the enemy, to shoot people, to defend your home world, but you always end up just digging a lot of holes whether it’s for fallen comrades, a latrine or just a good old fashioned trench. So much for military life.