The Great War • Hunter

38.Human Cannon

    By nightfall Alona, Wrecker, and Hunter were spying on the troopers that had gathered outside of a transport. Alona propped herself up on her elbows between Hunter and Wrecker, the former using his binocs to get a closer look.

    There was a clone captain, black and white armor. It reminded Alona of the very early days of the clone war where the armor was unpainted and everything felt so bland. It had reverted back to that at the rise of the Galactic Empire.

    "We're gonna need to break through their ranks." Hunter muttered, lowering his binocs and looking across Alona, over at Wrecker. "How many explosives do you have?"

    Wrecker shook his head. "Nothing that'll do any damage. Just a couple of smoke bombs." He replied sadly, like his lack of explosives was damaging to his soul. Wrecker liked to blow things up, it was a well-known fact.

    Alona raised a suggestive eyebrow. "Jedi tricks?" She chirped.

    Hunter shook his head. "Not now, but don't rule it out yet." He replied, glancing over at some old tanks from the war. "Ten o'clock."

    Alona and Wrecker looked to their ten o'clock, seeing what the sergeant was getting at. Wrecker laughs evilly. "Old Separatist tanks. Now you're talking." The tall clone exclaims as quietly as he could.

    Now that all three of them were (hopefully) on the same page, they snuck down the small terrain incline and ran over to the tanks. Alona had to take a deep breath as she got closer to the machinery, catching Hunter and Wrecker doing the same in her peripheral vision.

    The aftereffects of the war were really getting to them now. Every blast from the tanks, every ambush attack, every brother or sister falling beside you and you having no choice but to keep going.

    Alona hadn't even had the space to grieve for Satine or Fives until the following days after the war. It was like she had suddenly realized that the last three years weren't a horrible nightmare. That she had actually lived through that. It was all real.

    Alona and Hunter climbed up to the hatch of the first tank while Wrecker went to check out the second. Pulling the circular door up, they are immediately met with a battle droid laying  in the seat. It was shut down, something that was expected. The droids randomly shut off upon the order being given.

    Hunter ripped the droid from the tank and then held his hand out for Alona, who gave him a toothy smile and took it, using it as support to climb inside of the machine. He held the flashlight up over her head.

There were about a million buttons inside, and for the first time Alona realized she had no idea how to turn one of these things on. She had only ever buried her lightsabers deep into the engines and then decapitated the droids.

    But instead of admitting her lack of knowledge to Hunter, she closed her eyes and waved her hand across the control panel until an attractive ringing in her ears drew her hand to the most used button on the machine. She pressed it, but nothing happened.

    Glancing up at Hunter, Alona saw his shoulders slump in defeat. She blew air out of her mouth and then started pressing a bunch of the other buttons in hopes that the tank would do something.

    But it never did. They were completely disabled.

    "No good." Wrecker sighs from his tank. "How about yours?"

    Hunter held his hand out again for Alona, pulling her out of the tank. They stood on top of it, his hand resting on her upper back while he shook his head. "This one's down too." He replied, taking his hand off of Alona so she could jump down. He followed right behind her.