Star Wars The Clone Wars: Cuy'Val Dar#Wattys2016

Five

Lwhekka, Quadrant A4, 1600

Nearly an hour after they had set out, Null saw the droid stop in some of the underbrush, and at the same exact moments his HUD scanners notified him that a large building was ten meters ahead of them. Various weapons and defenses were quickly identified by his HUD and he called the team to an immediate halt.

"Sir..." the man trailed off. Null didn't have to say another word as the others quickly came to the same realization. It seemed off, though. The droid was standing still in front of them, not advancing. Suspicion crept into Nulls mind. What if the droid was notifying the others of its stranger followers? Had it even noticed them; after all, they had stayed pretty far back, hidden by the trees and shadows. The droid started forward just as Null began wondering what it could be doing. He didn't order the men forward yet. After the droid disappeared into the trees, he turned.

"Bogie, Bookkie, do you still have a safe channel on which to contact the Sergeant?"

"No, sir, something blocking our signal."

"How were you able to get through earlier?"

"I'm not sure, we didn't detect any kind of jamming signal."

The ARC nodded slowly, then pulled his comalink off his belt and opened up a frequency.

"Tap this into your helmets," he said, showing them the channel. All three men did as ordered. Suddenly, two of them jerked back in surprise at the same time.

"It's all white noise, sir," they said unanimously.

Null put away the transmitter, tapping into the frequency himself. "It's a ghost channel. By broadcasting underneath the noise it can bypass any jamming signal. What's the channel you used earlier to contact your Sergeant?"

"Channel 4598C," one of the CT/110/2's said. Null input that channel into the receiver and soon saw the green light of a completed transmission.

"Filter out the noise with your HUD," the then ordered, doing so himself. The white noise faded, leaving only the low hum of a transmission.

"Sergeant," Null began. He heard a pause, then the trooper replied.

"Null?"

"Yessir."

"How'd you get a transmission through?"

"Old trick. I've made contact to notify you that we've found the Separatist gun emplacement."

Again, there was that pause, then Sarge spoke up. "Good work. Send me your official coordinated and we'll make our way to your position."

"Yessir."

Null quickly used his HUD to load the coordinates into a file and send it to Sarge.

"Stay where you are until we arrive, don't engage the enemy if at all possible. Copy?"

"Copy."

Sarge cut the transmission from his end and Null shut down the ghost channel. He could feel the three troopers in his group looking at him, probably wondering about the ghost channel and how he had known about it. Null looked back to the place their droid guide had disappeared into again.

"We're going to stay at this position, under cover, until the Sergeant and the rest of your team arrives. Don't make too much noise and keep the chatter to a minimum," Null ordered. There was a round of nods. The men broke from formation and fanned out a little, finding places to sit and rest. Null leaned back against one of the trees, crossing both arms over his chest as he watched the troopers. Still they intrigued him, yet he could put aside his curiosity for the moment. The mission always came first.