CLODDS

[Phil Skayhan]

One good short story deserves another.

Clodds

General Grievious strode across the bridge to the viewport. Hundreds of thousands of ships lay assembled behind his flagship awaiting the order to begin the assault on the planet below. Grievous surveyed the world with cold calculating eyes. Without turning, he shouted, "Commander Skott!"

"Sir?"

"What is the latest intelligence on the strength of the Republic forces on Koh'Chang?"

"Unchanged, General. Approximately 14 divisions of clone troopers dispersed to five key strategic points."

"The Republic must really want to hold on to this place if they're willing to dedicate seven percent of their total forces," Grievious mused, "So, 200,000 clones against our invasion force of over 4 billion droids; hardly seems fair, does it not?"

"No, sir," Skott agreed, his voice strangely lacking any enthusiasm.

Greivous slowly rotated his torso to face the commander. "Is that sympathy for the enemy I hear?"

"Of course not, sir, it's just..."

But Grievious cut him of with a raised hand, "Very well, Commander. Order the ships position and prepare to implement operation Ploht D'Vise."

Commander Skott cleared his throat.

"What is it now, Commander?"

"It's this plan, sir. Why don't we just send the droids down to the planet and wipe them out? It'll be easy."

"That's not the way we do things around here."

"Come on, I could give the assault order right now. We could even do it together; it'll be fun!"

"Skott, "Grievious sighed, the disappointment heavy in his artificial voice, "You just... you just don't get it, do you Skott? Move the ships into position."

A vast swarm of transport vessels began moving past the Invisible Hand; each one loaded to capacity with battle droids and capable of laying waste to sparsely defended planet of Koh'Chang. But just shy of entering the atmosphere, the armada glided to a halt.

"Execute operation Ploht D'Vise!"

Commander Skott keyed the ships comms, "Attention all hands, secure stations and brace for impact." Then, turning to the weapons officer, nodded and said, "Now."

The Invisible Hand shuddered and the bridge's view ports darkened automatically as massive explosions began ripping through the droid fleet. One ship after another succumbed to the destructive force of the demolition charges Grievious had ordered planted in them.

"Report, Commander."

"Sir, all transport ships have been destroyed."

"All?"

Now it was Commander Skotts turn to sigh, "All but the three loaded with sub-par droids identified during quality assurance testing as being tampered with."

"Excellent!" cackled Grievious, "Order them to attack and subdue the planet. Leave not a single Republic soldier alive."

"Yeah, sure they will."

"What did you say?"

"I said, 'Yes, sir, they will'."

"Now prepare my ship to leave immediately to rendezvous with our fleet in the C'ar B'ar system where we shall dispense a second blow to the Republic in the same manner as we have here."

"But General, aren't you going to stay to find out what happens. Why repeat this strategy if you don't know if it even works?"

"Silly man," Grievious explained, "I'm a military genius, of course it will work. You see, the Republic expects us to use our overwhelming numerical advantage to simple steamroll them into submission. Doing so would be playing into their hands. But blowing up a majority of our own battle droids and only using a small number of droids, sabotaged models at that, on
the field of battle? This is a something that they'll never see coming."

"Of course, General. Who could?"

Grievios put a hand on Commander Skotts shoulder and patronized, "Skott, I'll make a strategist of you yet. Now, get us to C'ar B'ar. Further victories await us!"

[Feil]

Might I ask to which good short story you are refering?

[Singular Quartet]

I suspect the one that references there only being 3 million clone troopers. In the entire galaxy, that is.

[FTeik]

Operation P'loht D'Vise. LOL.