Disclaimer: Star Wars Copyright George Lucas : Characters copyright me

“Alright” Chief said, pressing his helmet up to a wall, “I think we're getting close now.”

“What are you doing?” Nemo demanded. Chief ignored him and pushed off the wall, then walked over to a nearby door console to try and hack the door open.

“I've got a gut feeling” Chief said “that there's something on the other side of this wall here.”

“Sounds good” Jenson said, not wanting to put up an unnecessary fight. He knelt down and inspected the floor, finding some marred oil stains on the otherwise flawless white metal flooring. “This seems to be a bigger junction point. More leaking fluids than anywhere else. We must be getting near an important area if the droids can't even stop to seal their leaks in time.”

“Good to know” Nemo said. “Hang on a moment.” He walked over to a nearby reprogrammed droid and opened its front chassis panel, looking at the intricate and heavy amounts of wiring and flashing lights that guided the soldier-bot from place to place all the time. The servos continued to whir, even as Nemo disconnected wire after wire and replaced them with his own fuses and miscellaneous sprockets.

“What're you doing?” Holy asked, peering over his shoulder. Nemo nearly jumped and ripped out one of the delicate cables he was working with, then relaxed himself with a tired sigh and continued.

“I'm making this droid” he explained “an interception beacon for the incoming and outgoing droid strategic chatter. If there's a signal being sent within this base, this droid should be able to pick it up and transfer the data into logical, audible information for the rest of us. Basically, I'm tapping into their network so we can hear their plans.”

“Oh” Holy said. “Neat. Are you done yet?”

“I've hardly just started” Nemo said.

“Oh, alright” Holy said complacently. He let Nemo continue working, staring over his shoulder the whole time, watching him plug and unplug various things from various outlets. “You done now?” Nemo simply threw his arm back and pointed him away. Holy frowned and followed his hand anyway. From above, in the narrow ducts that held all the wires and circuits that transferred electricity and commands in all directions in the base, a small squadron of bio-chemical attack agents crawled their way to their targets below.

“Are we there yet?” one droid annoyingly droned. The leading droid turned around and rudely shushed it before continuing in its crawl. “Just asking.” The droids stopped over a small, grated opening which overlooked most of the reprogrammed droid legion.

“Alright” The leader said, “one of you take this spot so they can't escape. I'll go ahead and block the other end of the hall. You other two, find two more grates and start pumping on my signal.”

“Roger roger” they all droned. The lead droid hushed them again.

“They still might be able to hear us” it warned. Remember, this toxin is visible, but it works fast, so we only need them to breathe in a little bit and they'll die for sure.”

“Roger roger” the droids droned on a much lower volume. The droid keeping up the rear stopped over the vent and looked down at the other droids that stood in their neat rows and columns below. Under the next vent all the clones were easily targeted. The two vents even further down observed the door that was being slowly, slowly hacked through and the open hallway where the clones would have to run should they be overwhelmed in too quick time to react. The ambush was perfectly set up now, and all they had to do was wait.

“Are you in position?” the droid that Nemo was working on asked in a completely different, low monotone voice. This question was obviously aimed for a completely different droid, but thanks to Nemo's expert abilities he had stolen the transmission. However he didn't know quite how to respond.

“What'd it say?” Chief asked fro mthe short distance.

“Hey” Dirge said over a static-filled radio wave. Chief picked it up in a hurry.

“Report, son” Chief replied.

“Stay alert” Dirge said as clearly and loudly as he could. “They're us...emical weapons from abo...” The transmission cut out after that. The signal was too weak. However, using his expert methods of deduction, Chief was able to remember what Dirge said well enough to ask Jenson to piece the rest together.

“What are emical weapons?” Chief asked.

“Chemical” Jenson corrected.

“Oh, shit!” Chief exclaimed. “They're gonna launch a chemical attack from abo!”

“Where's Abo?” Holy asked.

“Turn on your reserve air” Chief ordered. Holy and Jenson followed orders instantaneously. Jenson turned, looked up at the vent, and made silent movements to the vanguards to do the same. They acknowledged, nodded, and one went to report to Nemo.

“Sir” the guard whispered, “we're about to fall under chemical-based attack. Please turn on your reserve air and close your helmet filter.” Nemo glanced at him, stopped working for just a moment, and did it. Then, as casually as ever, he went back to his programming. The clones were ready for the attack now, which came at them in the very instant the droids saw that they had properly shielded themselves.

“Fire!” the leading droid commanded. A flood of thick, green gas came pouring out of the vents, clouding the air and blocking the visors of all the clones. Chief had to cease working on the door, Nemo shut the panel of the droid to prevent and caustic gaseous contamination and the clones all aimed their blasters naturally up, unable to aim, and attempted to counter-attack.

“RAAAHHH!!!!” Holy roared, using up excess air. He aimed his gatling gun up with a deep dip in his legs and drilled holes into the ceiling, piercing through and dismantling two droids, one of which left its spray-gun on. The other two droids strategically rolled away from the fire and into the wires, still spraying from their high-pressure gas guns. As they struggled to free themselves from the wiry tangle they snapped a few important cords and electrocuted themselves, absorbing all the electricity that would have otherwise been used to power some distant command console or radio transmitter, causing a power surge throughout the entire base.

Dirge shut down the console with a blast from one of his many rifles and sighed. “Those morons better not be dead already...” Dirge went on with his previous mission now, attempting to find a less direct, more advantageous rout to the generator room. Now that the base was out of power and the doors were no longer mechanically locked, Dirge simply pushed them open and went on his way unimpeded. He found a split in the hallway with two depowered, black signs guiding him to nowhere and nothing. He looked at them both for a while, trying to see if any residual light would have made some kind of marks in the surface so he could discern which was was which, but they were too new and sleek to have such problems. Feeling aggravated, he shot both down and went to the left.

As he walked down the dark halls he heard the clanking march of several droids as they came down the hall. Dirge hid behind a box and waited for them to draw nearer, cupping a grenade in his hand the whole time.

“Ugh” a droid groaned. “I hate the dark. It's so hard to see.”

“Just use your night-vision” another droid said. The first droid stopped and looked around, apparently, surprised that it had night-vision, and continued walking in step with the others in its patrol.

“I hope they at least killed one of those clones” another droid said. “That gas was expensive, I heard. If it didn't work, we'd have to work off another bill on those mines on the moon off of Cideria II.”

“I heard” another droid gossiped “that the last bath of droids sent down there got so much dirt in their circuits that they could never get it out and eventually a bunch of tiny plants grew in them and disconnected their main processing servos.”

“That's serious” a droid said. As these moronic clankers exchanged their droid-based horror stories, Dirge silently activated his grenade and let it roll out into the middle of the group. “What was that!?”

“A grenade?” a droid asked.

“Nah” the leader dejected as the grenade began to pulse rapidly. “It was probably just a-” explosion that shook the walls and floor and blew the droids to bits and pieces. Once his path was clear Dirge made a short dash down the hall with a repeating blaster in his arms. He kept close to the walls that had the most coverage in stacked debris and metal supporting columns in case of a sudden attack. He now traveled down a long, wide hallway with glaring lights still on.

“Not all the power's out” Dirge observed. “Obviously, with a weapons station, there's more than one conduit channel and more than one main generator room. I need to find the actual weapon system and overcharge it so this whole satellite blows up.” Dirge, not caring at all for the balance of the system he eagerly intended to endanger, possibly obliterate, continued now with a renewed purpose and cause. He would consider meeting up with his squad after he started the countdown, or once the cataclysmic chain of events was just about ready to begin. Until then, he was on his own, searching for a method of untold destruction.

Yet another obstacle came, however, in the form of a troupe of five super droids. Dirge ducked down behind one of the curved columns and equipped his ascribed sniper rifle.

“Where is he?” one of the supers droned angrily.

“There's one around here” another confirmed. “He's been screwing everything up.”

“I bet he planned the power outage” another super theorized. Dirge knew they were talking about him. He silently, stealthily moved himself into position, ready to take the central-processing unit of the first super in the line out with a resounding bang, but he waited. The supers were checking each individual nook and cranny, making sure nothing was being overlooked, no corner unsearched and uncleared. They were as meticulous as they were precise, a pre-programmed map in each of them knowing which ways led to dead-ends or not.

“He might be in here” a super said, opening the door to a narrow hall while the others guarded its back. It lifted the metal sliding door up over its head, despite the fact that the doors were awaiting a mechanical lock. A flashing icon on the control panel to the side begged to be pressed so the door could be locked. Dirge knew what to hit now. He aimed carefully and blasted the control panel, causing a small explosion of sparks that startled the nearby supers and forced the door on an automatic lock-down. “What the!?” the droid shouted before getting crushed under the door. Its body parts spread out and hit the other supers, distracting them while Dirge stood up and scoped them down with his supremely powerful rifle.

“There he is!” a super shouted just before getting blasted in the head unit.

“He wasn't in there at all!” another super exclaimed. Dirge continued blasting away, wasting no shots, always hitting his destined mark, until all the supers were dead and in smoldering shambles. Just as his luck seemed to take a positive turn, another group of supers rounded the corner and spotted the scene.

“Hey you!” the leading super said as it began running at him with wrist-blasters armed. “Stop right there!”

“Shit!” Dirge exclaimed as he retreated. “There's too many in my way!”

“Report, sir” a droid droned as it handed over its findings to the commanding model. It bent on its spidery joints and took the holographic data file to observe the information within, downloading and interpreting it all within a flash.

“I see” it droned. “It seems these clones are more clever than I had anticipated. We will have to take more extreme measures to ensure their eradication before they can reach the main weapons operating system. Send out the Droideka.”

“Yes sir” the droid obliged. The droids around sent out the appropriate signals to have the destroyers awakened and sent out from their pods. Unfortunately, however, due to the power outage most of the roller pods were either out of operation or jammed, and no Droidekas could be launched from them. Only three were available out of all those currently stored and their launch station was located on the clear other side of the base from where the clones were currently stationary.

“It's going to take a while” the reporting droid reported. “Should I give them all the same target?”

“No” the commander said. “Two will go to the larger group. These conditions are favorable for us, even one should be able to face them without much of a threat of destruction. A one on one fight with the other clone playing rogue will simply be a fast and efficient victory. Either way, their strategy of shutting down our power didn't work to their advantage as much as they had expected. By the time they escape the first three Droideka the rest will be operational, and a full-scale assault will be launched upon them...it is only a matter of time.”

“You already said that” a droid pointed out. With merely a point of his finer the commanding droid deactivated the snippy droid and had its metal body moved out of the computer terminal chair so another, less arrogant droid could take its place. With no more complaints to answer to, the commanding droid watched on its only working monitor, one overlooking the huge generator that swirled with a terribly powerful energy that fed the lasers, and sensed a pre-programmed feeling of triumph.

“Yes” it said once more, “it is only a matter of time...” Indeed, but will time play against the clones, or will they use time to their advantage?