The Paradox of Moatia Rhaden

Season One Episode Twenty-One

Moatia's braids whipped around her face as she stood in one of the gunships. The doors were open, and Moatia clung to the handle dangling from the ceiling as her braids continued to smack her. She carefully stood on her toes to peer over the edge of the gunship.

What she saw below was carnage.

The camp had been in a field. Tall grasses surrounded the tents but they stood in an area of dirt. The ground was black and it looked like it had been destroyed by a fire long ago. Most of the tents had fallen over. The field was scattered with boulders, and some of the tents were draped over boxes, creating lumps. Several were scorched with blaster marks, and some were burning, catching the trees in the inferno. People ran all over the place in blind panic, screaming. Moatia watched several fall to the Separatist droids. They marched unrelentingly through the camp.

The clones surrounding Moatia dropped to their knees, and began firing back at the droids before the gunship even landed.

Several of the battle droids turned their attention to the clones and tried to fire back. Moatia watched one battle droid get shot straight in the chest and collapse.

The gunships spun around the battlefield a few times, looking for a place to land. When they were finally satisfied, they landed in a hurry and it was rough. The clones rushed off the ships immediately, ducking behind boulders, boxes, and trees to fire a couple of shots. They slowly started to advance towards the droids in an attempt to drive them out of the refugee camp. They shouted orders and encouraging words like 'come on!' at each other in an endless stream as they moved their way through the battlefield.

The droids turned their attention away from the fleeing civilians and to the oncoming clones. One droid that was painted yellow yelled "Clones!" as if this was a new revelation the other droids may not know yet. A shot from a clone knocked his head off and he fell to the ground.

Unlike the clones, the tan battle droids didn't duck behind rocks and boxes for shelter as they fired. They formed a horizontal line and marched towards the clones. When one droid fell another marched forward to fill in its place, lifting a clunky metal foot over its fallen comrade. They had a sense of coldness to them as they showed no sign of emotion as droid after droid was shot down.

"Get the civilians to the gunships!" Neeka ordered the clones. She ran past the line of clones, straight into the line of droids. She flipped over the first line of droids, and they all stopped to stare at her, likely wondering what the kriff she was doing.

At least, that's what Moatia was wondering.

In a flash of green, the droids were cut in half and staggered to the ground. Neeka continued running through the lines of droids, flipping and leaping over them. She ran up to one, jumped to where her feet ended up at its chest, pushing it into other droids. She then flipped over another droid and chopped up its head.

Moatia sprinted after her master into the dense cluster of droids, igniting her blue lightsaber.

She swung it up, blocking a blast from a droid. Moatia raced towards the battle droid and ducked under its blaster, flashing out her lightsaber. The droid fell to the ground in two pieces.

Moatia moved forward, following her master. She was partially aware of Conlan somewhere to her right, shouting orders. Curse was somewhere in front of her. She could hear him scream out profanities to the droids. Dust spun into Moatia's eyes as several hundreds of different feet kicked at the dirt.

 She pushed forward, ducking and spinning to avoid droids and slash them to pieces. Before long she fell into a rhythm and she no longer heard the sounds of battle.