A Cartorian's Journey

Catra was sitting in the small cargo hold of the transport, looking over small screens having written reports. It was to the best of her ability though, with Captain Rex going to look over it later to help extend upon it. She, Captain Rex, and Commander Cody were on assignment to inspect the listening posts in this quadrant. See if they're up to code and in working order.

It was one of her assignments without having Obi-wan there or any other Jedi master, it would just be her and the clones. She was excited at first, and with each outpost they’ve been too she made sure to check out on the fauna nearby. It didn’t help distract from the disappointment she sensed from some clones.

While the older ones you’ve been around longer were sort of impressed, the newer ones however, which apparently they’re called ‘Shines’ on the account of their armour being shiny and new like the clone. She could sense they were excited at least meeting a Jedi, but she suspected most of them were expecting a Master, not a padawan.

Of course, she can’t really blame them though, but there’s one thing she keeps wanting to say to each of them but holds her tongue. ‘It’s now just clones who get thrown into the war when they aren’t ready’ is what she keeps thinking, she’s already lost a few friends from the academy from this war.

“Kid, you okay down there?” The screen flashed as the face of Rex showed up, he and Cody were up in the pilot and co-pilot's seat of the ship.

“Just trying to think of a way not to be a disappointment at the next outpost…” Muttering softly as her ears twitched, trying to keep quiet but Rex had heard her.

“Don’t let it get to you kid, the sarge will try and keep them in line.” Rex smiled at her, he already had to step up once when another clone didn’t believe she was a jedi.

“In the meantime,” Cody spoke from his seat, “Could you contact the General of our latest report?”

“Oh right, sorry about that. I’ll give the report now.” Tapping her claw on the screen to end the call between them, before trying to contact Obi-wan.

It took a bit for the connection to take hold, but when it did it wasn’t just Obi-wan, but Anakin as well. Ahsoka was either asleep or had to get sent on her own assignment, she didn’t really know.

“Master Skywalker. Master Kenobi.” Catra didn’t find it right saying that as her tail swayed, but she had promised herself to be professional, at least somewhat on this assignment.

“Catra. How goes the inspections?” Obi-wan was curious as to how she was doing, he noticed how she hid her feelings of having her tail swaying like she was happy, but with how her ears laid flat was the opposite.

“Well the tracking station in Pastil is fully operational,” Catra kept looking to the left of what she wrote on her report, she may or may not have been distracted with the animals in the area, “We’re now proceeding to the outpost in the Rishi system.”

“Good. Report back once you’ve arrived,” Obi-wan nodded, and before Catra could end the call he continued, “We’re going to also talk about hiding your emotions too. As I'm curious why you feel like that.”

“Will do Master,” Nodding and ending the call, before slumping forward into her seat and groaning against the table, “And I thought he wouldn’t notice.”

Sliding her claw across the screen, she changed it to just a brief file of the Rishi outpost, though there was only one part she focused on, the fauna around the outpost. The main threat was something called a Rishi eel, which is dangerous and predatory, able to eat clones. She suspected that’s why they have the regulation not to go outside.

Makes her wonder how many clones were eaten by it before it became regulation.

The monitor blinked as Cody was trying to make contact with the outpost, clicking on it to listen in, knowing they wouldn’t see her face anyway.

“Sorry, commander. We're experiencing technical difficulties.” The clone sergeant responded when finally answering.

‘We’ll that’s awkward since there’s about to be an inspection,’ Catra thought to herself with a small laugh, ears twitching slightly, ‘He doesn’t need to be so close to the screen. I wonder if he’s sick.’

“This is the inspection team.” Cody’s voice came through.

“Inspection? Negative, negative. We, uh, do not require an investigation,” Catra eyed him suspiciously with a raised eyebrow, all the clones in charged had been informed prior, but this is the only one who seemed to change their mind, “Everything is fine here. Thank you.”

“We’ll be the judge of that. Prepare for our arrival.” Cody responded again, also suspicious.

“Roger, Roger.” The transmission was cut after.

“So…” Catra unmuted herself to talk to them, “I’m not the only one sensing something wrong.”

“I feel exactly the same kid.” Rex agreed with her.

“Well, good luck. I’m putting you two in charge for this one.” Cody had a smirk in his voice.

Catra made sure her gear was ready, she left her blaster back in her room with Obi-wan as this was only supposed to be an inspection. She may or may not have managed to sneak herself a plasma grenade though, she’ll always keep one on her after last time.

Watching the camera as they were on a landing approach for the base, she tilted her head. Usually at every base there would be a deck officer, maybe they were in the process of changing shifts.

“Come on kid,” Rex spoke as both him and Cody came down from the pilots seats, putting on their helmets, “This is probably going to be interesting.”

Nodding she stood up and followed after them.

Exiting the front of the ship, the deck was filled with large crates, Catra wouldn’t know what’s inside them as that would be info the clones of the base would have. Rex and Cody were taking point in front of her, she was just really an escort. But it was something at least.

“This is not good,” Cody looked around as they were walking slowly across the deck, “I don’t see a deck officer anywhere.”

“These boys are sloppy,” Rex inspected the deck as well, “There should always be an officer on deck.”

“I thought at first maybe they were changing shifts,” Catra’s ears twitched looking to her left, thinking she head something behind the crates but must have misheard, “But it shouldn’t take this long.”

On their slow approach to the outpost door, it opened revealing a lone clone, without a weapon as well. But they had a weird walk as they walked up to them.

“I feel like there’s something wrong with him.” Catra was listening closely, but the armour made it somewhat difficult.

“Welcome to Rishi, Commander. As you can see, the outpost is operating at peak efficiency,” The clone announced, from the amour design seemed to belong to a new clone, “Thank you for visiting, and have a safe trip back.”

The three just look between each other, all them could tell there was something going on.

“We need to inspect the base just the same.” Cody spoke as the three of them slowly approached the clone, him backing away slowly and making over exaggerated hand movements.

“Uh, there is no need. Everything is fine and fully operational.” During the whole conversation the tone of the clone never changed, Catra slowly put her hand on her lightsaber trying to listen closer.

“Take us to the sergeant in command.” Rex ordered stepping forward.

“Roger, Roger.” The clone responded.

Now something was definitely wrong, this was the second clone to respond with the droids saying. At first they thought it could be a joke, but now it seemed to be something else. Especially when a droid attack flare signalled from the crater below. Catra didn’t waste a second lifting her lightsaber. Pointing it at the clones head, and activating.

Not a second later, the body fell to the floor with a gaping hole in the helmet.

“Catra! What the heck are you doing?” Cody shouted in alarm, but calmed as Rex placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Relax,” Rex kneeled down beside the body, and pulled the helmet off, revealing the head of a different kind of droid, “Just as I thought. Looks like one of those new commando droids.”

“That flare must have come from the survivors,” Cody kneeled down as well, looking at Catra, “How did you know?”

“There were multiple ways, but most importantly,” Catra pointed to her ear, “Didn’t have a heart-beat.”

Catra quickly activated her lightsaber and deflected a blast from hitting Rex, as more of those commando droids came out of hiding all over the deck.

“Ambush!” Rex and Cody got up and started firing back at them.

Usually droids wouldn’t be a problem, but these droids were tougher than most, knowing she would have to get close to one to cut them down. But she had to stay on the defensive as there were more than she couldn’t probably handle. Not even deflecting blasts back into them helped as they had tougher armour.

Rex pulled Catra back behind cover before she could get overwhelmed as he noticed they had all tried firing onto her. The crates give them some sort of cover for now.

“Those clankers have tough armour.” Cody shouted as he fired onto one of them, thinking he took one down but then it got right back up.

One of the commando’s got too close as Catra managed to grab it with the force and flung it over to her, slicing it’s head off as it flew by overhead. She spotted two more exiting the outpost, holding large grenades.

“We need to get off the platform!” Catra shouted and pointed to them, quickly messing with her left vambrace.

“Copy that!” Cody and Rex also noticed it.

Watching as the droids were running for cover from the explosions, the three of them jumped off the side of the platform. Both Rex and Cody fired graples from their guns to the underside of the platform, while Catra had fired one from her vambrace.

Having to hiss silently as the explosion of the ship hurt a bit more than expected for her hearing, but at least the droids thought they could have died.

They slowly repelled down into the crater, feet touching the ground nearby were pieces of their now flaming ship landed.

“Well, that sure complicates things, Commander, “ Rex looked at the flaming wreckage, “No worse than that time on Tibrin.”

“We had Jedi with us on Tibrin,” Cody walked up to him, turning his head to Catra, “No offense, Catra.”

“Eh, none taken. I know you didn’t mean harm with that,” Shrugging her shoulders, “You’ll have to tell me that tale.”

“Another time perhaps.” Cody nodded.

Her ears twitched as she noticed three figures approaching them from the fog, tapping Rex and Cody to look. Raising their rifles as three clones (or droids) emerged from the smoke, Catra had her lightsaber at the ready but was listening close focusing if they had a heart-beat or not.

“Hands above your heads. Take your sun bonnets off.” Rex aimed his blaster at them, which in turn they raised their hands above their head, but they were confused from the sound of it.

“Sir?” One of them asked confused, and that was just the clarity she needed. She could hear the shakiness.

“Don’t shoot, Rex,” Catra gently placed her hand on his blaster to lower it, pointing her claw to them, “You aren’t droids, but please remove them.”

At her request they removed their helmets, revealing the faces of three clones. A relief sight to see, which was interrupted as a large Rishi Worm revealed itself as it loomed over them. It was larger than she expected.

“That you can shoot.” Catra nervously chuckled.

With a quick blast from Rex, nailing it right in the eye, it slumped over dead. Catra was a little sad to see the creature die, but on the other hand she didn’t want to be eaten by it.

“Nice shot.” One of the clones were impressed with his shooting, watching Rex take off his helmet as he kneeled over and placed his hand on the wound of the worm, blue blood coating his glove.

“The name’s Rex. But you’ll call me Captain or Sir.” He stood and faced them.

“Sir, yes, sir!” The three clones stood at attention.

“I’m Commander Cody, your new boss.” Cody took off his helmet as well.

“I’m the padawan known as Catra. My Master is Kenobi,” Catra mimicked taking off a helmet as well, pretending ears got a little stuck getting a chuckle from Rex, “What are your names?”

“My designation is trooper 27-5555, sir.” The clone on the left introduced himself, reminding Catra that clones were numbers at first, but gained their names. After all they are living beings.

“We call him Fives. I’m Hevy,” Hevy was the clone on the right, before gesturing to the one in the middle, “This is Echo.”

“Where’s your sergeant?” Cody questioned them.

“Dead, sir,” Echo looked down as he answered, probably having seen his death, “We’re all that’s left.”

“Sorry to hear, heard your sarge was a good one.” Catra bowed slightly to them.

“Looks like we got ourselves a batch of shinies, Commander.” Rex approached Echo with an amused smile.

“Shinies, sir?” Echo was confused, along with Hevy and Fives.

“That’s right. Your armour, it’s shiny and new,” Rex placed his hand which touched the blood on Echo’s armour, leaving a blue handprint, “Just like you.”

“Sir, me and my batchers are trained and ready,” Hevy got their attention, “We’ll take back our post, shiny or not.”

Catra smirked, loving his attitude, stretching her limbs as her eyes focused on them, “Then, let’s go find out what you’ve got.”

The six of them had a long climb to get back up, as they were further down in the crater than expected. But all of them were great at climbing, while the clones had their training to thank for it. Catra used her claws to give herself hand holds when there was nothing to grab, either way the climbing was the easy part.

Finding secure footing they found a platform where they could discuss their plans, as the platform deck would be the next place they climb to.

“Look sharp, rookies,” Rex faced the three clones, as he made sure they were armed “As long as those tweezers occupy this post, our home planet of Kamino is at risk.”

“But there’s so many of them.” Echo was worried, holding a blaster given by Rex.

“That shouldn’t matter, it’s our job to make sure we retake it,” Catra interrupted before Rex could say something, though he seemed intrigued, “It doesn’t matter if they could have more firepower. We need to out smart them. Which I say definitely fits you three.”

“Aren’t you also new to this as well?” Echo looked at her through his helmet.

“Let’s say padawans are equivalent to shinies in this regard, this is my first mission without my master,” Catra’s ears twitched while admitting to them, “But doesn’t mean I can relax and hold back. I was assigned to this. We’re in the same boat, so let’s impress the others to show we can do this.”

“How do you propose we get through those blast doors, Rex, old boy?” Cody looked at Rex. as the three clones nodded at Catra and prepared their blasters.

“I have a few ideas,” Rex idea’s are sort of like Anakin’s sometimes, but Catra can handle them easier, “How long would it take you to cut through the blast door, Catra?”

“Would take a few minutes, but it would definitely alert them,” Catra thought as she was thinking back to the small chance when looking around the deck, “And even so they could notice we since the posts have those eye scan things...”

“Guess we have our idea.” Rex smirked as Catra trailed off in realization of their plan.

Catra was the first one to proceed to climb up, being quiet as possible when she reached the landing platform. Spying a lone commando droid sweeping the deck. Lifting herself up onto the deck and behind huge crates and out of sight of cameras, she made a small tapping noise on the crate.

Staying quiet as the droid came close to inspect the noise, she wouldn’t be able to use her lightsaber as the flash of light could be seen in cameras. So she waited patiently for the droid to slink around the corner, her tail wrapped around it’s legs causing it to fall over. Grabbing it’s head and yanking it out of it’s socket.

Keeping a hold of the head, she slowly crouched down and approached the post, standing up once she was beside the blast doors. Being just far enough to not be spotted by the eye scan, she slowly placed the head down underneath before signalling the others.

All but Rex were on either side of the blast doors, as the plan was for Rex to pretend to be a droid. Even approaching the door with the weird walk they do.

“Unit 2-6, is that you?” The eye thing came out of the wall as it focused on Rex, scaring Catra slightly but knew she wouldn’t be spotted.

“Roger, Roger.” Rex nodded at the eye, not knowing that Catra would record this whole thing as a special file on her holo-projector.

“You sound strange. Is something wrong with your vocabulator?” Well the droids were smart she would give them that, but doesn’t mean they can’t be fooled.

“Roger, Roger.” Put his hand up to his neck to keep acting the part.

“Take off your helmet. Let me see your faceplate.”

“Roger, Roger.”

Rex proceeded to act like he was taking off his helmet, before crouching down out of sight and lifting the head of the droid Catra had taken out before. Cody was on the other side of the door shaking his head, not believing it would work. He ate his words a few seconds later when the blast doors opened.

“Clones!” The droids shouted in shock.

“Roger, Roger.” Rex had moved into position before the doors had opened, frightening the droids, and blasting the middle one destroying it instantly. The other two were taken out just as quickly, “Right, let’s move”

Moving swiftly into the base, no alarms have gone off yet to alert the other droids. Heading down the hallway till they reached a set of stairs that led to the command center.

“Permission to take point, sir?” Hevy requested Rex.

“I’m always first, kid.” Rex ran up the stairs first, followed closely by Catra.

The minute the command center was in sight, Rex quickly blasted the head off one of the droids closest to them. Catra followed up by forcing one towards her and cutting it in half, with the droids now catching up to speed they were being attacked. The other clones were blasting the droids from the doorway.

She jumped up to the walking platform above cutting down another droid in the process, focusing the other droids' attention on her. Deflecting blasts heading for her direction, not having to worry for long for each time one focused on her they were blasted by a clone.

Jumping between two of them she sliced one of their heads off, while her tail tripped the other of the walkway to the floor below, getting blasted to pieces by the others.

The last droid was blasted to pieces by Echo and Hevy, both of them claiming they were the one who took it out. The clones taking their helmets off for the time being

Catching her breath slightly she looked out the window of the command center, unable to detect any more droids in the outpost. But as her eyes focused up she sighed heavily, “...are you kidding me? Get up here everyone!”

They all joined her on the walkway, with Echo, his helmet back on pulling down his visor to probably get a closer look, “It looks like a Separatist fleet.”

“That’s why they commandeered the outpost. They’re mounting a full-scale invasion.” Cody put the pieces together.

“We have to warn command.” Rex agreed

“Echo, you’re with me. Let’s check what’s wrong with the signal.” Catra jumped down to the ground floor, with Echo having to take the stairs to get down to the console.

“Didn’t know you’d be good at this kind of stuff.” Echo stated while looking at the console, he was better having known his way around it.

“Just because I’m a jedi, doesn’t mean I'm good at just that. I work and practise this stuff in my spare time.” Catra showed him her vambrace for a few seconds before getting back to it, “If I hadn’t worked on and improved the grapple, it would have been a hard fall. Too focused on the battle to control my fall at the time.”

“Wait, you could have jumped from that high without getting hurt?” Echo looked at her intrigued.

“Yeah...only if I'm not blasted at,” Chuckling, ears twitching in annoyance as the console beeped at her again, “Dammit...anything?”

“Those clankers sabotaged our transmitter, and they hard-wired the all-clear signal,” Echo shook his head, “It’ll take time to repair.”

“We don’t have time.” Rex called out to them, pointing outside, “Look!”

A droid ship was descending from the sky, probably as reinforcements as the droids would be able to respond to their fleet. At first Catra thought they could handle the situation without needing help, but with these circumstances it was likely impossible. Sighing before cutting her force connection with Obi-wan.

“I’ve alerted Obi-wan,” Catra called out confusing all but Rex and Cody, “It will likely take time for him to respond, so I suggest if you have a plan we should also do that.”

“How exactly have you alerted General Kenobi?” Hevy was confused and suspicious, but Rex explained to him.

“Catra here has an ability to have like a force link to anyone she places so they will tell if they’re fine,” Rex had been told before and had being skeptical, but he’s been proven wrong before, “If it cuts of it alerts the other person. I suspect the reason she didn’t do it sooner was because we didn’t consider an invasion.”

“Correct...now what’s the backup plan if he doesn’t get here in time?” Catra questioned him.

“If we can’t protect the outpost, we’ll destroy it instead. Destroying the all-clear signal with it.” Rex thought of the idea on the spot.

“Do you guys have enough thermal detonators for a blast of that scale?” Catra turned to Echo.

“We wouldn't have enough for that...but perhaps we can use the LT,” Echo explained to her, “This moon freezes for over half the year. We use liquid Tibanna as fuel to heat the base.”

“That makes sense actually, we use the same stuff back home but need more for each separate vehicle,” Catra’s tail swayed closing her eyes, “Have to keep idiots away from it though. Highly explosive stuff.”

“Good. Bring the tanks here and prime the detonators,” Rex nodded to Echo before turning to Catra, “Want to set up a few traps for our droid friends?”

“Sure, been wanting to blow something up.” Smirking flashing her fangs, before heading for the stairs.

“Hmm,” Obi-wan stood at the main console of the deck, the all-clear signal for the Outpost was still going, but what was concerning was that Catra cut off her force-link, “I think something may be wrong.”

“I’m sure they would have alerted us if something was wrong hours ago.” Anakin looked at him from across the console, though he was worried as well.

“I think they just did though, Catra cut off her link to me just moments ago,” Obi-wan stared at the console, sure Catra sometimes played jokes, but that was in her downtime and she never joked with the link, “Perhaps...they are unable to disable the all-clear signal for some reason.”

“It wouldn't be harmful to check, I’ll make sure the others are ready for a hyper jump.” Anakin left the console to inform the others.

“You better be safe, Catra.” Obi-wan muttered before getting ready.

Catra stood by the blast doors that led outside, where dozens of droids were marching from to retake the base, the upside was that they didn’t know the droids inside have been destroyed. She blinked when she watched Hevy come down holding a minigun in his hands.

Now that would definitely be a surprise for the droids.

“Reinforcements reporting. Open up.” Speaking of which, one of the droids activates the console outside. With a small nod, Catra opened the blast doors.

“You didn’t say please.” Hevy lifted the gun and started blasting apart the droids the minute the door was opened, turning them into scrap metal.

Fives and Cody soon joined him in blasting the droids, with Fives throwing a plasma grenade. Destroying a bunch of droids in the process. Catra jumped out of cover to deflect blasts back when she figured there were too many.

“Close the blast doors and fall back!” Catra managed to knock a head of a droid who fired onto her.

Cody closed it as ordered, the doors were slow to close but that gave them more time to blast a few more droids. Once it was close they withdrew further down the hallway and took cover behind outlets from the walls. Catra pulled the grenade off her belt to be ready.

It took a few minutes for the droids to blast open the door and start firing on them again, but that was opening Catra needed as she threw her grenade this time. Destroying more droids and slowing down their approach a bit, going back into defense of deflecting as the droids kept advancing on them.

“Fall back to the op center. Move!” Cody called out as they had to retreat back up the stairs, Catra protecting them from the back.

Reaching the bottom of the steps she pulled out a small detonator, having set up a cluster of grenades earlier in the now filled with droids hallway. Pressing it she watches as more droids were consumed in explosions and causing some debris to block their path, giving them a few more minutes.

Rushing up the stairs to the others, she noticed as they were having problems with priming the detonator.

“The detonator isn’t working.” Rex was about to hand it to Catra, but Hevy took it instead.

“I’ll take care of it, it’ll be fixed in no time,” Hevy pointed to a hatch in the wall, probably how they escaped the last time, “You guys get out of here.”

“Hevy,” Catra placed her hand on his shoulder, giving him another detonator in case the first one doesn’t end up working, “Don’t be a reckless idiot and die on us. That’s an order.”

“Yes, sir.” Hevy nodded before getting to work on priming it.

Catra quickly moved and followed the others through the hatch and down through a maintenance tunnel, leading outside into the crater where they first met up with the clones. Slowly sneaking their way around the wall of the cliff to look back up at the base.

“Hevy, hit the-- Where’s Hevy?” Rex looked back not spotting him.

“I swear if that reckless idiot-” Catra turned to go back up and help him, yelping in surprise when he ended up behind her, tail flaring in anger, “What took you?”

“Sorry, had to swap it, but thanks to you I had plenty of time,” Hevy held up the detonator, “Now...I’ve always wanted to do this.”

Catra always had this fascination with explosives, so let’s just the one that tore apart the outpost was one of the best she’s seen. Of course they had to hide as parts of the base nearly landed on them, but it was fun watching the whole landing deck fall into the crater along with the droids that stood on it.

“I always hated that place.” Hevy chuckled at watching it be blown up.

A familiar engine sound filled Catra’s ears, looking up to see gunships flying down towards them, they’ll finally be getting off this rock...also at least they got there before more worms showed up.

Catra collapsed upon her bed once they made it back to the cruiser. Hevy, Echo and Fives were going to be receiving medals from Obi-wan and Anakin down in the hanger bay. They definitely earned it after today, and they’ll be joining another unit. Catra looked forward to working with them again.

“Thought I might find you here,” Obi-wan stood in the door-way to her room, entering and sitting down at the chair of her desk where she laid her equipment, “I’ve read the reports, and I have to say i’m impressed with your insight. But I’m more impressed with how you handled the situation on the Rishi outpost.”

“Really? I don’t feel like I did anything that important worth mentioning.” Catra sat up allowing her tail to fall off the edge.

“Well for starters, you’re force-link helped quite a bit,” Obi-wan leaned back slightly, “It put us on edge and we were prepared for hyper jump already, the minute the signal went down we jumped and caught them off guard.”

“You also saved our bacon a couple of times as well,” Rex announced his presence standing in the doorway, “Hevy, Echo and Fives wanted to give you their thanks.”

“T-Thanks for telling me,” Catra gave a small smile at receiving the thanks “Can’t wait to work with them again.”

“In time Catra,” Obi-wan chuckled, shaking his head, “Echo and Fives will be joining a new unit, but Hevy will be joining us. At his request too, he quite liked fighting by your side.”

Catra flashed her fang, her explosion buddy will be joining them.