STEALTH and TRACK: BOOK ONE

C H A P T E R F O R T Y-E I G H T

THIRD PERSON POV

Clone Force 99 were the sole beings left in the abandoned Tipoca City... Other than the echo of clacking boots against the slick flooring, the air was dead quiet. No cadets training, no mess hall shenanigans, no Kaminoan lectures, just silence... Fern had never considered Kamino as her true home, but sprinting through its halls once last time tugged at her heart...

She and Hunter followed the others down a corridor she had never seen before. It must've led to wherever the squad were able to sneak in to Tipoca City undetected. They were about to reach an egress to the outside extension between the stilted domes, when a booming explosion trembled the corridor they were currently positioned in. The power was instantly cut off. Once the large hatch circulated open, the clones were greeted by a cascading shower of blaster bolts, their only path shattering in an endless siege of raging, fiery explosions right before their eyes.

BOOM!!! CRASH!!! KABOOM!!!

"Back inside! Go!" Hunter pushed everyone back through the pitch-black corridor. Fern was genuinely petrified... The Empire was destroying Tipoca City... They were erasing the very existence of Kamino... Why? To rid any evidence of the entire cloning program and data? To wipe away the last traces of the Clone Wars from the galaxy? She did not snap away the rapt of the bombardment until Tech snatched her arm and dragged her away from the exposed platform.

As the clones desperately and blindly dashed through each demolished hallway, the floor beneath their feet surged upward and dropped in a wavy motion. Fern wasn't sure where exactly they were heading, but her mind was focused on staying alive and assuring herself they would find a way. Electrical wires spazzed out and more abrasions were erupted through the backfire of the assault. Massive shards of debris dropped from above them. Hunter continued to shout at his squad. "Go! Go! Keep moving! We have to find cover! Keep moving!"

Abruptly, a bolt pierced straight through the facility only meters in front of the clones, launching them backwards. Fern's ears strained from the high-pitched ringing. She could make out some muffled coughs. Her instincts reached out to Omega, who crashed near her. Without a moment to catch their breath, the entire city shuddered and the balance was knocked over on its side. All the clones began sliding down the hall they just dashed up. With the thick metal rafters toppling and piling in the path, Fern and Omega were backed up in them along with an unconscious Crosshair, and they watched in terror as the four other clones skidded farther down.

"Hunter!" the young girl screamed. Before Fern knew it, they and Crosshair were separated from the sergeant and the others by a malfunction in a convenient automatic flood gate.

——————————————————————

FERN'S POV

"Omega, Omega!" a new high-technological machine probed itself to the young girl. This was my first realization that this medical service droid had been with us the whole time. In fact, I later recognized it as the same droid who was with Omega the day I first met her. The levitating droid worriedly shook her shoulders.

"I got her, droid." I pushed it aside and helped her to her feet. My neck ached from the constant whiplash I experienced barely escaping every outburst in the corridor. I immediately noticed my bottom half was soaked and the water level was rising rapidly. I deduced the dome we were trapped in had been snapped off its stilts and was currently sinking into the sea...

"I do not wish to alarm you," the droid said, its glowing yellow eyes blinked as his word rate accelerated with every syllable. "but if you do not vacate this compartment, you will soon perish, and I will be left here on my own!"