Mardox: Desolate

Chapter 27: Raptor Rampage

As Hera piloted the Ghost to Lothal in pursuit of Callum, everyone reviewed their plan. Well, not really. Kanan and Zeb were discussing battle plans over holochess, Ezra and Chopper had built a dummy of Agent Callum and were practising with it, while Mardox's hologram was right in the middle of a riveting conversation with Sabine about dragons. But when Hera said, "Here we are!" everyone knew what to do. The three ships landed in the middle of an empty shipyard and everyone climbed out, raptor and all. Mardox strapped two glowing devices to the palms of his hands and shot the camera above the hangar door. Suddenly, as if they had been waiting for the rebels, the door clunked open and at least a hundred stormtroopers walked out. The crew of the Ghost was nervous; they had never fought this many stormtroopers simultaneously, but Mardox uttered an odd code. It rang out across the shipyard and over the Lothal rooftops.
"ALPHA TANGO TANGO ALPHA CHARLIE KILO!" He spoke quickly, and no one knew what it meant except for three. Lucas drew his sword. Mardox his. But Foxtrot went under the most noticeable change of all. He shuddered all the way from the top his head to the tip of his tail. He closed his eyes, whined, scratched his head, and when his eyes opened, his pupils were as thin as a pin. He stood there in the shipyard, tail up, legs braced, ready to pounce. Everyone else awkwardly stood in place, as if waiting for something. Mardox sighed. "ohforgodssake That means attack." Understanding nods from the rebels. But Foxtrot, on attack, he attacked. He pounced forward and ran to the closest stormtrooper. He jumped on top of him, teeth bared, and tore through the the plastoid armour. Mardox and Lucas ran forward with Foxtrot and began. They worked in perfect harmony. As Foxtrot took care of the first trooper, the machine gun on his head rotated, making a sweep of the nearby stormtroopers. As he did this, Mardox and Lucas ducked and swept their swords at stormtroopers who were intuitive enough to duck as well. Foxtrot stood head up, tail down, so Mardox could run up the length of his back and blast some stormtroopers with his palm repulsors. They worked quickly and systematically. And once Foxtrot deployed the critters, the battle was over in seconds. Critters are small, robotic mini-velociraptors that can fit through vents and small spaces easily, and in large numbers, can swarm someone. This is what happened. The wave of critters advanced, pulling stormtroopers below the line of vision to their doom. Mardox, Foxtrot and Lucas still worked on the front lines but the enemy numbers quickly dwindled. Foxtrot finished the last stormtrooper, the critters returned to him, and a bloodied stormtrooper helmet rolled over to Ezra's feet. Suddenly, the dark depths of the hangar that the stormtroopers had emerged from was light up by many ceiling lights, and the crew of the Ghost nodded to Mardox, Lucas and Foxtrot, and the raptor's eyes returned to normal as they advanced through the door.