Mission to Ord Mantell (Clone Wars)

The mission to Ord Mantell was a mission undertaken by two squads of the Grand Army of the Republic's clone commandos to the Mid Rim world of Ord Mantell, during the first year of the Clone Wars. After an important package bound for Supreme Chancellor Palpatine from Malastare diplomats was stolen by a group of Trandoshan bounty hunters, the Republic commandos of both squads were sent to Ord Mantell to retrieve the parcel and return it to Coruscant before the Trandoshans could sell it to the Separatists. On Ord Mantell, the clones located and engaged the bounty hunters, but one squad was killed when the Trandoshans struck back with thermal detonators. The other squad tracked the bounty hunters as they attempted to flee, and destroyed a number of battle droids sent to retrieve the object, though one of the squad members fell to droid fire. When the squad finally confronted the Trandoshan bounty hunters, a firefight ensued in which two more commandos and all but the Trandoshan's leader were killed. squad's sergeant and only surviving member, Sarge, jumped onto the final bounty hunter as he attempted to flee, killing him, and recovering the package for the Republic. The package would turn out to be little more than a Malastarian trinket of which was little interest to Chancellor Palpatine, and following its delivery, the Chancellor had the item stored away with numerous other political gifts.
==Prelude==
Approximately six months after the start of the galaxy-spanning conflict between the Galactic Republic and the Confederacy of Independent Systems known as the Clone Wars, diplomats from the planet Malastare arranged for a political gift to be delivered to Supreme Chancellor Palpatine of the Republic. However, before the package could be delivered, it was intercepted by a group of Trandoshan bounty hunters and stolen, with the intent to sell the item to the Confederacy. When the Republic became aware of the situation, the clone commandos of Sarge's squad and another squad were called to the headquarters of Republic Intelligence, where they met with an Advanced Recon Commando officer. In one of the intelligence headquarters' briefing rooms, the ARC trooper informed the two commando squads of the situation that had developed, and tasked them with retrieving the package from the bounty hunters. Though clone commando Sarge felt that the job was better suited to an ARC trooper, the clones journeyed to Ord Mantell where the intended sale of the diplomatic package to the Confederacy was to be made.
==The mission==
===Ambush and pursuit===
Upon arriving on Ord Mantell, the commandos went about preparing for their attack on the bounty hunters. At midday, Sarge's squad took to a nearby roof overlooking the street the clones had tracked the Trandoshans to, while the other held position on the ground. The soldiers of the latter squad positioned a large truck in the street under the premise of mechanical troubles in order to bring the convoy of three landspeeders the Trandoshan bounty hunters occupied to a halt. Once stopped, the rooftop squad's ordnance specialist fired on the lead speeder with a missile launcher, destroying it. The ground squad then leaped into action, assaulting the remaining speeders. The Trandoshans managed to pull away, however, and as they hurried off, tossed several thermal detonators from the rear of their vessel that killed their attackers. From their rooftop position, the other squad's sniper shot the driver of the rearmost speeder in the head, causing the speeder to drift out of control and crash, killing the remaining occupants.
With two of the three bounty hunter-aligned speeders destroyed and the third fleeing the area, the surviving commandos rushed to ground level where they boarded a speeder piloted by one of their own. The squad tracked the Trandoshans through the streets of Ord Mantell toward the industrial yards, but when they arrived, there was no sign of where the bounty hunters had gone; Sarge ordered his men to split up and search the area for the hunters. The squad's pilot would be the unlucky soldier to locate the hunters inside a building adjacent to the open courtyard where they had arrived, and received a spray of blaster bolts from the Confederacy battle droids the Trandoshans were meeting with as his only reward. The squad leader quickly threw an EMP grenade through the door, shorting out the group of B1 and B2 super battle droids, before storming in and destroying them with their DC-17m blaster rifles.
===Assault===
Once the droids were destroyed, the commandos set their sights on a blast door at the rear of the building and the squad demolitions expert set a charge on the door that blew an entrance for the soldiers. The surprised Trandoshans rushed behind their speeder for cover as the clone commandos stormed the room with weapons firing. The squad's explosives man was shot and killed by one of the bounty hunters, but a grenade from Sarge left the Trandoshans dead. However, the Trandoshan leader had been hiding, and once the commandos' guard had been dropped, he struck from behind: firing a shot from his wrist blaster, he struck the ordnance module on the squad sniper's pack, detonating it, killing its wearer, and nearly taking out the squad leader as well. With the survivor down, the Trandoshan leader attempted to flee again, but the clone commando jumped onto his back, dragging him down. Holding him by the neck, the clone ejected the vibroblade on his right hand's knuckle plate and stabbed the bounty hunter in the chest, proclaiming it as vengeance for his squad's deaths. He then retrieved the package the clones had been sent after, and solemnly left to deliver it to Republic Intelligence as instructed.
==Aftermath==
The package Sarge had recovered was delivered to Coruscant by Republic Intelligence, and presented to Chancellor Palpatine in his office by Galactic Senate Vice Chairman, Mas Amedda. Despite the effort in which Sarge and his commando brothers had gone to in order to retrieve the package, Palpatine found the gift from Malastare's diplomats to be little more than a trinket he dismissed as unimportant. The Republic Chancellor ordered Amedda to store the unwanted gift in a storage closet among a slew of similar gifts.
Sarge, his squad now dead, was reassigned as the sergeant of Aiwha Squad, a new unit which he would lead until the end of the Clone Wars.
==Behind the scenes==
The mission to Ord Mantell first appeared in the story The Package, from the Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures Volume 3 of the Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures comics, written by Ryan Kaufman.
==Appearances==
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==Notes and references==
Category:Battles of Ord Mantell
Category:Missions of the Clone Wars