A Bringing Of Forces

Chapter 9

A large clone gunship lay, strewn in various parts, covered in the thick vines that covered the forest floor and mounds of the blue and purple flowers dotting the surface. Aedion seemed shocked as well, but most likely for other reasons than Ahsoka. They moved closer, Ahsoka barely registering the movement in her shock.

She looked up when they had stopped directly in front, trying to get a good look at the ever so familiar ship. The field now made sense. The ship must have crashed, clearing the area of the thick trees and allowing the grass to grow and form a meadow. The ship had been a ways away from where Ahsoka and Aedion had first come through. They hadn't been able to see it from where they had stood, but the momentum gained as the ship most likely had crashed through the atmosphere would have been horrendous and very well could have traveled that expanse of land on impact.

The initial shock of the gunship was starting to wear off and her mind scrambled, searching for any mention she had ever heard of the planet they now stood on. There was nothing of course, if she had known something, she would have found it when Obi-Wan had said the peculiar name.

They began circling the craft, looking for clues to what had brought the ship down and it was soon blatantly apparent to what had. Large scorch marks peppered the sides, and one of the wings had an entire hole ripped through.

It must have been a smaller battle if Ahsoka hadn't heard of it. Unless it had been kept on the down low.

They met up again at the front of the ship, neither yet daring to enter the gaping holes where the sliding doors should have been. Ahsoka tentatively stepped forward, creeping up closer to where the clones would have stood. She kicked aside a thick clump of brush under her foot only to connect with something solid. With a sick sense of dread in her stomach, she cleared the brush away farther and found the remains of a clone's helmet. It was an older model, clearly showing the ship had crashed at the beginning of the Wars, if not one of the very starting fleets, though it was unlikely at such an outer system. The War had waged all across the galaxy, though, no planet hadn't been spared the brutality of the three year long massacre.

Dust and moss coated the helmet in a thick layer, covering nearly all the distinguishing markings, if there even was any. The helmet seemed clear of any extra coats of paint, an even larger sign directing Ahsoka to the start of the wars. When she shifted the helmet farther aside, a faint clicking resounded within, making her eyes close. She pushed away the thick grass directly around the helmet, and found the bones that had once adorned it so proudly.

She moved aside several other lumps of grass and found similar helmets and pieces of armor and bone, each coated in the same thick layer of nature. If it truly was from the start of the wars, that made it nearly five years old, plenty of time for the planet to have its way with the ship. Plenty of time for the clones to have escaped.

It was highly improbable, the amount of helmets and bones she had dug up, showed nearly the entire squadron had been killed in the impact if the standard amount of troopers had stayed constant from the beginning on out.

With a final kick of a helmet, scattering the brittle bones along with it, Ahsoka begrudgingly made her way back to Aedion who had stayed mercifully quiet.

"It looks like it crashed at the start of the wars." Ahsoka cleared her throat. "The helmets are all old models that share no resemblance to those of the stormtroopers now." She sneered the last few words, disgusted at how far the loyal clones had gone since her last encounter. And not the one when she had been shot at with Rex. "There's nothing left here. Anything that could have been worthwhile, has long since deteriorated in the elements."

Aedion continued staring at the devastated gunship. "We should take one last look inside just in case. See if any of the survival packs survived."

Ahsoka nodded, "They should be directly on the right when you walk in. Underneath the floor panelings."