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Groz and his squad had been holed up for a while. They had not been detected, but sitting around would only get them caught. They had to move. But he did not want to risk getting his men caught. He scratched his head, then turned to his right hand man.

Barin, take the squad and take the back roads back to the Savannah. I'm going to go take a look to see if we're being trailed and deal with any left-overs.

But sir--

That's an order. I want you safe. Losing one wookie is alot less oainful than losing an entire squad. Go now to the hovertruck and take it back, I'll leave shortly.

He saluted the short man, who then gathered the soldiers up and left the building with the utmost care and discreetness. Groz had there, handling his hunter in one hand, his blaster in the other and took a quick rest.

"So you don't mind if we take 'em?" Charr asked as he strapped the saddle on on the Cracian Thumper.

The two rebels had managed to make their way to a livery on the edge of town, undetected by Imperial pursuers. With the curfew on Repulsorcraft, this was about the only option left to them.

Not that Charr minded. The fleet footed animals would get them where they needed to go. The only problem was price.
Oddly enough, that wasnt posing to be a problem at all.

"Take 'em. They'll get more use out of you fellows than what they've seen all year." The proprietor told them.

"We owe you then." Charr said as he pulled himself up into the saddle. He maneuvered his mount for the door of the livery. "If the Imps ask, tell 'em we stole them. I dont want to cause you too much trouble, mate."

"Think nothing of it. If I had the courage to do what you boys are trying to do, I'd probably be riding out with you."

Charr tossed a salute to the man as Lenler drew his own mount up. Then, the two rebels turned their thumpers towards the open veld and took off, the long legged striders passing quickly over the open ground.

(I'm getting sick of Jaden Ordo's lack of activity. Let's get his a** moving. I'm bringing down the hammer.)

Saburo watched the display and frowned as a group of signatures bottled themselves up into one of the building after being engaged, "Maybe we could save his a** from on high." Leaning back Colonel Akaga tapped his helmet mike, "Captain Hildegard, move your men back one-hundred meters, but keep suppressing fire on the enemy. We're calling in an air-strike."

Akaga glanced at "Twitch" and grinned, "Transmit the targeting coordinates to the ARC supplying the feed. Tell him: one torpedo only."

* * *

Eiko smiled coolly as the mindless traffic of numbers across her display steadied into a moving picture. But still the image was unintelligible, "Kay, negative? solarize? Yes, black is white, white is black... and rotate." Her hands tapped the keys and the image began to rotate before her as the colors reversed, revealing a gray-scale image of the battle hundreds of kilometers away. She blinked at the bright images, her eyes not used to the harsh white light. Quickly she pulled a set of filtering shades on and the mixture of colors became a single gradient of blue.

Suddenly she remembered the broadcast that had shown the death of governor, "Fight? Still?" She leaned forward studying the image, "Who is who?"

Hildegard already had his men beating down the door when his comm officer- the only man with a half-way working radio- gave him pause with Agaka's new order.

He frowned, relayed the order to his men and fell back to a defevsive, keeping the men holed up and convincing they were still there with an occaionsal blaster bolt to the door.

Meanwhile, the 'comm officer' replied. "We've got a squad of rebels holed up, Colonel. You can probably already see which building we're in and such. The goodnews is is that we've got the wookiee cornered."

By now, most of the men were backed off, almost out of the building, due to the 100 m recall. Only a pair of men remained in the building to keep eyes on the door.

"We're not sure if he's got any windows, but we do know we've got the only door blocked. Unless he tears right through the floor or ceiling, we've got him cornered."

He didn't like it. If the Imperials really wanted them dead, they would have broken down the door. He needed to hurry. Something bad was about to happen. He couldn't break through the windows. They were reinforced with far too much wood for a simple broken down house. Then he realized he had an instant exit.

Barin- give me that rocket launcher, now! And get down!

The man handed him the rocket launcher, then they all hid behind barrels and tables. Groz knelt down but let his head and the launcher look over the table. He armed and fired the thing, punching a huge hole in the brick wall. Immediately, the men scrambled out, jumped down to the road, and booked it for an alleyway or some other kind of cover.

(Damn Fools... What I'd meant as Eiko saving the lives of the Rebels may just as easily kill them because they left the building. Oh well.)

High above the carnage the ARC-170 fired, and a brilliant blue sheathed missile streaked downward, down below the Imperial troops looked up at the Proton Torpedo as it streaked downward. It's onboard computer adjusting it's course and checking its location compared to the coordinates it'd been given:

N: 39.746234, W: 47.783247, A: 100

A precision laser measured the distance from missile to the ground, and at precisely 100 meters above the building which had held the rebels, it detonated.

The blast lit up the night as a shockwave ripped outward, blowing out eardrums and picking up pieces of debris before hurling them like slugs from a shotgun. The alleys around the building became shooting galleries for debris. Commander Hildegard's men were stunned by the explosion and shockwave, and some were injured by the flying debris. Similarly the Rebels too were caught by shrapnel and debris, wounding and stunning many of them.

Inside the Swift Assault 5 Colonel Akaga swore, "Damn it Twitch... I didn't tell you to do an airburst!"

His men were on the ground and wounded. Only He and Barin still had their wits about them. But none of that mattered, only escaping did. He quickly slapped himself and got Barin up, then tried to think. It was hard when you had just been hit by a proton shockwave. Then his thoughts came back to him. If he was injured, then so were the Imps and that would give him time. But he would have to carry the wounded men. He could do that. If he couldn't, he was no wookie. He quickly tossed the PLEX launcher to Barin and slung one man over each shoulder. It was slow going and it wasn't easy, but if they kept moving, kept to the shadows and got to the truck, they would make it. So they started moving as fast they could to where their truck was.