Star Wars: A clash of lords

Chapter ten

Leyl found herself pinned down behind a small wall, they had only managed to advance a few meters in the past hour. She could see both flanking teams had become pinned down on the roof tops but had made a much more successful advance due to regular cover created by the chimney flutes. The night sky was lit up with the light of red bolts whizzing passed giving those behind cover a hiss that seemed to put everyone more and more on edge.
"Comms lieutenant, where are our bombers we can't get any further like this" Leyl shouted into her communicator inside her helmet.
"They are less than a click out, Commander they are coming in from the east, they recommend pulling our troops on the roofs back" the comms lieutenant crackled through her receiver
"Team A, Team B respond, you need to fall back NOW!!!" She said and awaited a reply but all she heard was static "Team A, Team B acknowledge" still the static buzzed and no response came.
They must be out of localised comm range, "lieutenant, get them to fall back over the long range communicator" Leyl barked desperate to get them out of the bombers path.
"Lieutenant what's taking so long" Leyl now could hear the bombers engines "lieutenant!!!"
"There's no response Commander, the imps must have deployed small scale comms disrupters up there" the lieutenant said breaking through the static Leyls comms receiver was emitting.
"Call off the bombers, Now lieutenant" the desperation in Leyls voice grew more as each word was rushed out.
"I can't, they've entered comm silence as is procedure during the final moments leading to the..." the communications officers words sounded as heavy with responsibility as Leyl felt.
BOOM, BOOM, BOOM.
The ground shuddered as the high velocity proton bombs hit the ground along the strafing run.A large cloud of dust and rubble raised into the air like a tsunami ready to flow over itself and flood the land.
"Brace for impact!" Leyl yelled down the comms as she saw this huge brown wall coming toward her. She grabbed onto the walls edge and sunk her feet into the ground to hold her as close to the wall as possible.
All of a sudden everything went pitch black as the wave of debris crashed over them. Luckily the helmets were designed for inhospitable planets that experienced extreme sand storms, which ran a triple filtration system so the occupants could breath without suffering lung blistering or affixation.
The storm soon blew over leaving a thick mist of atomised debris.As Leyl flicked her helmets lights.The beam of light was a cone expanding to infinity as she pivoted on the spot she started seeing beams of light flicking on. She decided to head toward the shortest end of the beam as it would be where the source of light originated from.
Leyl stepped carefully in case the bombs had made the ground under neath to sink or even just split in two, it was known to happen often as energy built up in the proton bombs would not just scatter across the land but also penetrate deep into the ground causing cave ins where gas packets or other anomalies were.
Her com crackled to life "hello, any one receiving my line?" Then it went silent so Leyl decided to test her localised comms to see if her helmet didn't sustain any exterior heavy damage "This is Commander Leyl, responding to your call" Leyl said hopeful that more troopers survived beyond that she could not make out.
After regrouping with the nearest group of troopers, the fog of debris started to settle. But the sight she now beheld was one that brought her to her knees, bodies laid every where as far as the eye could see. Some were fully exposed where as others were burried by rubble and just with a few Limbs poking out like flowers in a field of mud, there were both allies and imps although the dust made it harder to distinguish one from the other. Leyl then realised these are the bodies our side of the impact zone many more had been obliterated and the ash falling was all that had remained of them.
I killed them, I killed all of them and for what so we can advance across one hurdle in a campaign that will throw more ambushes and more resistance. As she stood and turned around the four high rise buildings had disappeared leaving no trace they were there, even the buildings her teams had ascended were reduced to rubble.
A hand grabbed her shoulder, it felt familiar, so she brought her hand to meet it. Then a familiar voice spoke "we must all die eventually Leyl, the only choice for the living is not weather to morn them but rather to let their deaths be meaningless or to continue fighting to make their deaths have meaning through victory". As her hand reached her shoulder she realised and exclaimed in shock "Commander Tacilin!" But as her hand went to lay on his she found it fell to her shoulder.
Is this it, is he the voice I hear before I snap and end up in a lunacy asylum. No not now I must keep on for now even if it is insanity that said those words they are still true and I must keep on with this battle.
She stood and took count of how many troopers were left, 31 troopers out of a thousand were still alive. She knew that this was not enough and she knew they too knew it. So she said what got her willing to continue.
"We have lost our friends, our colleagues and our family today in the name of service, but we must not let them die in vein.We must win today so their sacrifice can be remembered tomorrow!" She shouted with such passion that she believed these loyal few left might follow her of a cliff to preserve the dead's glory.