A chain of explosions much bigger than what three grenades could do erupted on the battlefield. At the same time, a large shadow encompassed Hell Squad and the droids.

When Dageer looked up, he saw the CR90 Corvette that brought them to Iktotch. The frontal turbolaser cannons on it were hardly of any help against other sh.i.p.s, but when the targets were helpless infantry, they were deadly.

In a matter of seconds, about three hundred droids were blown to pieces, and the remaining started peppering the corvette with red lasers.

The lower rampart of the corvette was open, and a crew member was holding on it with one hand, and had a blaster on the other.

"Hurry up! Their tanks are coming!"

"Move, move, move!!!"

Dageer pushed his men towards the rampart. The corvette went down a little, enough for the clones to climb the rampart, although it wasn't touching the ground.

Seeing that the clones were already getting inside the ship, General Di said something to Ragout, and the padawan nodded. Both of them pushed their open hands forward, and Ventress, who was about to hack with her red lightsabers again, was sent flying ten meters.

The duo turned off their lightsabers, and somersaulted to the rampart. General Di motioned upwards with his hands, and Brain was pulled inside the corvette. Seeing the last of his men get into the ship, Dageer shouted for Shep to take off.

While holding on to the columns of the ship, Dageer felt his recently healed shoulder hurt once more, and grunted. If he kept entering in fights without giving it the proper time to heal completely, his shoulder would probably break again. However, it wasn't like he could choose to fight or not.

Finally, the rampart closed, with the two Jedis still deflecting lasers that found their way in. Dageer felt the ship accelerate upwards, and almost fell, but at least now they were out of range from the AATs.

"Is everyone all right?"

Most of the clones answered his question with a nod, and only Three-four gave a real answer, mainly because he was treating Brain's injury.

"Only Brain got hurt, sir. But he will only have a small scar, that's all."

The grenadier and second-in-command chuckled.

"All of you are getting one, I didn't want to be excluded. But I doubt any of them will be as good as yours, sir."

Hell Squad laughed. Only Brain would dare to joke with the sub-commander of a Republic Legion this way. Hell Squad had gone through too much together to care about small things like that. And even if he didn't want to, Dageer still let the joke slip without doing anything, because it helped ease the tension.

Only one soldier had gotten hurt, but the truth was that they had nearly been wiped out. Had the battle lasted a few minutes more, casualties were bound to happen. Shep had arrived right on time.

Dageer looked over to his general, and saw the Nikto sitting on the ground, with his eyes closed. His lightsaber was floating before him, and slowly spinning. By the side, Ragout was on his feet, looking at nothing in particular.

"General Ragout. Is everything all right with General Di?"

Unwilling to interrupt the Nikto's meditation, Dageer approached the Togruta. Ragout looked at Dageer, and slowly nodded. He appeared to be extremely tired, which was understandable, considering that Dageer's body was aching, and he didn't even fight with a lightsaber.

"You should grab some rest, general. Both of you. I will tell Shep to set course to Coruscant."

Ragout once again nodded, and looked at Dageer gratefully.

"Thank you, Dageer. Hell Squad was spectacular on Iktotch."

Dageer said nothing, but inside he agreed with the Jedi. Hell Squad had fought better than he ever saw they do. Maybe it was training and experience, maybe it was because Three-four was back, but anyway, they didn't let Dageer down.

"You all, go to sleep too. That's an order. Yes, Dab, you can take care of your blaster first."

Before the sniper even asked, Dageer knew what he wanted. After every battle, the first thing Dab did was clean his DC-15x, especially if he used his overcharged shot, since it was quite a burden on the weapon.

...

After all the clones went to their quarters, only Dageer was left in the lower hangar. He took off his helmet, and put it on the floor. Then he pulled the bandage that was covering his eye. Droplets of blood fell on the floor, and on his armor.

During the battle, the wound had opened, and the inside of the bandage was soaked with blood. Thankfully, his eye hadn't suffered any other injury. After throwing the old bandage away, Dageer headed to the medical bay, where a medical droid applied another one, and gave him some painkillers.

"You should refrain from doing... physical activities. But your eye... is getting better."

Dageer chuckled when he heard the droid's instructions. It would be really hard for him to refrain from doing physical activities, even if he wanted to.

Since he didn't want the other clones knowing about his reopened wound, Dageer put on his helmet, and went to the c.o.c.kpit of the ship.

The clone trooper guarding it saluted him when he entered the room, and Dageer returned the greetings. When he entered the c.o.c.kpit, the pilot, Shep, and his co-pilot, Spike, turned around.

"Thanks for the rescue, Shep. We were having some problems down there."

"Just doing my job, sir."

"I know. Well, our next stop is Coruscant. Can't say I am happy to go back there."

"Yeah. I lost some friends to that mad scientist there. But they captured him, at least. He was doing some experiments on Naboo, I think. He will spend his life in prison, like the sc.u.m he is."

"He was lucky it wasn't us who captured him. I can't guarantee he would be intact. Hahaha..."

"I know what you mean, Spike. But Coruscant it is. And then back to the fight."

"Back to the fight."

"Back to the fight."

----------------------------

Three days later, Dageer was playing Dejarik with Ragout. He won against the padawan most of the time, since he had been trained to command. But the padawan learned fast. A few more rounds and Dageer's winning streak would come to an end.

"So, general, what do you think General Di will do with the crystal?"

"It will probably go to the Jedi Temple's archive or storage. Why?"

"I can't help but remember that this thing was responsible for so many deaths. If I were you, I would destroy it. It is too powerful."

"It's an object of the Force, Dageer. It's who uses it, and how it is used that decides what it does."

"I don't know about that. That thing was all alone on Mygeeto, and almost killed Timer. I don't... What was that?"

Suddenly, the whole ship swayed to one side, throwing Dageer off his balance. A few seconds later, the same thing happened, but now at the other end of the ship.

"Shep! What the hell is going on? Asteroid field?"

"I don't know, sir. It's not asteroids. I just lost control of the ship. It's like something is... nudging it."

As if to ensure that the pilot was right, the corvette shook once more. Dageer looked at Ragout, and put on his helmet.