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Synopsis:
THE SPAARTI INCIDENT
Kinman Doriana, personal aide of Supreme Chancellor
Palpatine, is sent to the trading world of Cartao, a
world that has thus far maintained careful neutrality in
the Clone Wars. Doriana intends to change that, however,
as he flies past Foulahn City towards the Spaarti
Creations manufacturing plant. Landing at the estate of
Lord Pilester Binalie, he informs him that Palpatine is
interested in this unique manufacturing plant, run by
Cranscoc and capable of changing their production lines
overnight. He demands to have a personal inspection tour
of the facility. In addition to Binalie, he has Binalie’s
12-year-old son Corf and the system’s Jedi guardian
Jafer Torles come along on the tour. Impressed by the
facility, Doriana announces that Palpatine has ordered
the whole facility to be nationalized for Republic
military use. “Beginning this evening, Spaarti
Creations will be turning its complete facilities over
to the manufacturing of a new design of cloning tanks.”
Binalie – and everyone else on Cartao – have no
choice or say in the matter. He adds that he’s had the
13,000 non-Cranscoc employees of Spaarti Creations
infected with a synthetic disease resembling Plyridian
fever, hence getting them out of the plant and keeping
them quiet. Torles is sickened and refuses to have any
part of the scheme; Doriana presents him with an order
from the Jedi Council ordering him to cooperate.
After checking via holo with Commander Roshton that the
Republic techs, schematics, workers and troops needed
are on their way, Doriana contacts his other employer
– the Sith Lord Darth Sidious. Impressed that things
are going well, Sidious directs Doriana to “continue
as you are and allow the plan to work itself out. Report
again when things become interesting.”
A week passes, and Spaarti Creations is completely
converted into a cloning facility pumping out a new kind
of cloning tank – one that can produce an adult clone
trooper (one per tank) in a matter of weeks, not a
decade. Binalie and the authorities of Cartao are close
to panic – the Republic’s supposed to move out in
three more weeks, but the Separatists will surely learn
of the scheme and attack Cartao before then! They’re
more right than they know, as Corf and Jafer spot three
Trade Federation landers flying near the Binalie estate
towards the plant. 5,000 battle droids – and only 900
clone troopers to defend the plant. Binalie starts
moving the Republic techs through an underground tunnel
towards his house, as Jafer and Roshton direct the clone
troopers to block the landing ramps into the plant.
Doriana is surprised – this is not how it was supposed
to go! The clone troopers lay ambushes in areas that
disturb the Cranscoc workers, thus ensuring the plant
can’t be converted for Separatist use before Republic
reinforcements arrive…
Two days pass as the Separatists clear off the junk
around the plant. Chancellor Palpatine informs Doriana
over holo that the Separatists plan to use the plant to
produce the new D-90 commando super battle droids.
Palpatine assures him a Republic light cruiser is on the
way to take over the orbiting Separatist ship. After he
ends his message, Darth Sidious contacts Doriana with a
different set of orders – see to it the Separatists
capture Binalie for use as a hostage. And at all costs,
make sure neither side damages Spaarti Creations itself.
Even as they speak, Neimoidian commander Tok Ashel
bursts into the Binalie estate with super battle droids
in tow, ordering Binalie to tell him how to reconfigure
the assembly lines. Binalie explains he can’t do that,
as only the Cranscoc twillers can do that – and they
won’t move until all the junk is cleared off. Angry
and stubborn, Ashel seizes young Corf as a hostage and
orders Binalie to either join him in the plant and tell
him how to reconfigure the plant without the Cranscoc…
or have his son returned to him dead. Torles joins the
boy as a hostage, passing himself off as a simple
teacher.
Elsewhere, Commander Roshton learns of the double
kidnapping and comes up with a “fun” plan –
arrange a series of explosions via strategically-placed
land mines, allowing Torles to get the boy clear of the
Neimoidians. That done, Roshton has forces hidden in the
nearby forest shoot down the overhead STAPs and
transports. But this only brings in two more Trade
Federation landers that send occupying droid troops
smashing into Foulahn City and Triv Spaceport. Roshton
is running out of options – they need those cloning
tanks, but not bad enough to let the Neimoidians pump
out D-90 droids by the thousands. Just in time (for
Doriana), the light cruiser Whipsaw arrives to attack
the droid control ship and launch gunships. As night
falls, Commander Roshton and Master Torles leads a clone
trooper assault on the plant’s east door, lightsaber
swinging. Torles himself sneaks into the plant and
captures a terrified Ashel as the droid control ship
blows up in orbit. All seems won -- until the droids
spring back to life, forcing Torles to retreat and
trapping Roshton and his forces inside the plant. (The
Neimoidians had a backup droid control program in one of
the landers.) The Separatists pull all their forces
around the plant, waiting for time and starvation to rid
them of Roshton and the Republic troops inside…
After hours of searching through the rubble of a
battle-smashed Foulahn City, Doriana finally finds what
he was looking for – a dead clone trooper with an
unlabeled datacard in his back pocket. He’s surrounded
by a battle droid patrol, but he’s prepared – he
presents the datacard as his credentials. When the
droids scan the card, they freeze up. Kinman takes the
override disc Darth Sidious gave him back from the
droids – and is confronted by Torles. “Since when do
the Separatists give free passes to Palpatine’s
advisors?” Kinman says he passed himself off as a
medical observer from Aargau. Torles doubts the story…but
doesn’t have anything to back those suspicions up
with. The two return to Lord Binalie at the estate’s
greenhouse, where Doriana informs them that they can use
his override card to get to Roshton and his forces and
get them out of the plant. They can’t last for long,
and reinforcements are too far away – “Unless there
are other forces available that I don’t know about?”
Torles doesn’t understand why this question is
directed at him, and Doriana doesn’t give him the
chance to think about it.
The next morning, Torles and Binalie (Doriana chooses to
sit this one out) joins up with the surviving Republic
forces outside the plant and presents them with Doriana’s
authorization. Using an unfinished underground tunnel
into the plant (which Torles can ‘finish’ with his
lightsaber), the troops are to sneak in the plant and
smuggle the Republic troops out without letting the
Separatists in on the escape. The evacuation goes
according to plan, and the entire group waits for a
distraction outside the plant to let them slip out. That
distraction, a clone trooper feint-attack on the backup
DCP lander, turns into more than a distraction when
Roshton and his forces unexpectedly join in. “This is
our one chance to get into that landing ship and destroy
the droid control matrix,” Roshton tells a shocked
Torles and an enraged Binalie. Torles reluctantly sends
Binalie back to his home and accompanies Roshton on the
assault, realizing the Neimoidians will throw caution to
the winds at this point and wreck the plant while
defending themselves. Moving as never before, Torles
single-handedly takes out two AAT’s and a droideka.
But then, suddenly, more reinforcements come…..Jedi
reinforcements, inside an assault transport!! But as
Torles watches in slack-jawed horror, the transport
(which came out of nowhere to all concerned) fires….and
deliberately levels the Spaarti plant and everyone in
it!!!
And then, as if to ensure its’ work was done, the
transport kamikazes straight into what’s left of the
plant and blows both transport and plant to bits.
The battle is won. The Separatists are off Cartao. And
Cartao and its infrastructure is a burning ruin, thanks
to the Jedi Order. Lord Binalie and young Corf now hate
Jafer Torles and blame him for the catastrophe. And the
saddened Jedi Master, now a pariah among the people of
Cartao, can’t help but feel anger and vows whoever
sent the Jedi on their suicide mission to Cartao –
even if it’s the Jedi Council itself – is going to
pay for this atrocity.
And elsewhere, Darth Sidious gloats with Doriana over
holocomm over the total success of his scheme. The “Jedi”
in the transport were unrecognisable corpses with
lightsabers and Jedi robes strategically placed around
them – a frameup that worked perfectly. “The
destruction of the Jedi will be only half a victory if
the people of the galaxy mourn their loss. Thanks to
your work there today, few in Prackla Sector (or
elsewhere) will shed even a tear at their passing.”
Sidious notes that the several thousand clone cylinders
the Spaarti plant manufactured before its’ destruction
will be shipped at Palpatine’s orders to a secret
fortress on Wayland he has ordered reactivated. Doriana
asks if he should “arrange for them to be lost."
Sidious sneers and tells Doriana to "let Palpatine
have his little trophies."
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