A/N: Just a trial run of a concept I had for Commandos on a mission against Separatist forces. I'm trying to write this as a gritty depiction of the clone wars. Leave me feedback and I certainly plan to expand on this!
Hour 22 49
Day 455
Lighting split the dark sky. Illuminating the ground below.
Mud.
Metal.
Blood.
A gloved hand gently brushed the eyelids of a man closed. The gentle pitter patter of the rain provided a deafening silence to the scarred, surreal landscape. The other gloved hand gently put the body into a resting position in the wet mud of the bombed-out trench line. In a swift but gentle motion, his hand ripped the holo-tags off of the dead body.
Standing upright the mud-soaked suit of armor silently tucked the holo-tags into a pocket on its utility belt. In a stoic and unblinking manner the fierce gladiator looked around but found no other bodies that could be paid respect to.
Though the suit's helmet prevented any audible sound from escaping the warrior, the lighting that shown down upon the soldier spoke for him. This gladiator, for all his strength, stood as if emotionally broken at heart, standing as if frozen in time, surrounded by the death and carnage that had been a fortified trench line mere days before.
Suddenly the suit of armor glanced upwards from the dead soldier and down the trench, as if fixated by an invisible sight. The faint blue T of its helmet shimmered in the darkness of the rainy night. The suit of armor began moving silently through the debris in the trench line, stepping over broken rifles and droid components with a grace seemingly uncharacteristic of such a bulky and imposing figure. Slowly and cautiously the figure crouched next to a mostly intact turret nest. The gladiator, coated in mud and dirt, silently extended a single blade from the gauntlet atop its wrist. The figure then struck out in one rapid motion that seemed unnatural.
Striking upwards with his weaponized wrist the soldier made a grinding noise against a barely visible piece of metal atop the muddy trench line. Pulling upwards and over, the piece of metal quickly materialized into a functioning weapon of war. A B class, series one droid. The droid made a quick jab upwards at the hostile soldier, its silent electric servos moving its arm to face its adversary; but its upwards jab was met with a swift motion from the suit of armor. The gladiator drove its bladed fist cleanly into the neck joint of the droid, pulling the sensor and optical unit clean from the metal frame. In silence the suit of armor inspected his kill and picked up the black weapon the metal droid carried.
It was a long rifle with an optical cluster that seemed to ergonomically fit into the sensor of the droid he had just killed. Calmly the gladiator looked over the droid before reaching and picking up several magazines of ammunition from the metal body. Sliding the magazines into the free spaces of his belt, the faint blue T on the helmet of the soldier scanned its surroundings again. Listening to the sound of rain ping softly against broken plastoid plates and melted durasteel armor, the soldier carefully slung the newly claimed rifle upon his back and made his way back down the trench line, with as much silent grace as ever.
The trench line wrapped around a low hill and at an intersection the blue T of the gladiator stopped to look down the crossing path. Another figure approached him with as much silent grace as he possessed. The figures looked at one another in silence before one tapped the side his helmet
"8-7, I found a firing solution on the sniper emplacement. I counted seven B one snipers, three B twos and two humans, I would say the intel was wrong about eight snipers, but I see you found the missing eighth."
If the figures had not been wearing their helmets, they would have been exchanging as big of smiles as such a dangerous situation would allow.
"Yeah, the poor droid was trying to crawl around as if it were scouting. I'm willing to bet the humans are getting antsy. No targets for nearly two days, they know we're up to something."
"Agreed. Nervous fighters make mistakes, think that's why the Republic doesn't allow civvies out on the frontlines?"
"Probably, though if we keep stacking bodies like this, even the top bureaucrats will want to field every trigger-happy kid." The figure known as 8-7 sighed and continued, "Anyway. We're on the clock, we said we'd have the sniper nest taken out by 0300, that's in two hours 9-3, lead the way"
A single mike click and the pair of dark grey gladiators made their way through the trenches and up the side of the muddy hill in deafening silence. The only sound heard was the pitter patter of the rain.
As the hours of the night continued ticking away, the pair of gladiators continued onwards, drenching themselves in the endless mud from a sky that seemed to take no rest from endless rain. Spending nearly an hour to quietly scale the muddy hill the pair arrived at a crudely made lookout with a vantage point on the trenches below.
"I didn't have much time to make it look pretty."
"I couldn't tell."
The figure known as 9-3 slowly turned his helmet to face 8-7, conveying much more emotion than words could express.
"The firing solution you requested… here it is." 9-3 continued, a hint of playful annoyance in his hushed voice, despite the commlink being a short-range secure channel. The duo peered over the muddy cover and down into the vast array of trench lines and emplacements. Everything seemed to be carved into an endless world of mud, clay and rock. A particular building stood out however. Across the trench lines a fortified concrete structure was built into the mountain, looking over the entrance to a low canyon.
"That's the sniper nest, and if you can see from here, we have clean shots on all of them 700 m out."
8-7, laying prone in the muddy lookout carefully reached towards his back and pulled the long black rifle in front of him. Pulling from the back of his helmet, he attached a small wire into the captured rifle's optical cluster. 9-3 needed no prompting and pulled out a short stubby rifle from his thigh plate. While laying down, the mud-soaked soldier pulled out a component from his backpack, a singular black and grey module that carried a much longer barrel than what the short black rifle was equipped with. With a soft click and slight whirr the mud-soaked suit of armor modified his rifle into a long-barreled sniper.
The breathing on the comm link slowed down as the duo assessed their target locations.
"I have the B two on the left along with four of the snipers." 8-7 spoke in a voice barely above a whisper.
"I have the other snipers along with the two B twos in the center. Meet in the middle?"
"A-Firm 9-3" came the sharp reply.
"On my mark"
"Three."
The unmistakable sound of a glove tightening its grip broke the dull rain.
"Two."
The breaths on the comm link became silent.
"One."
"Mark."
The deafening silence of rain was shattered by the roar of gunfire.
Red and blue plasma bolts erupted from the crude lookout and streaked across the night sky. They tore right into the sniper emplacement, cutting cleanly into the heads of the B one sniper droids. Almost immediately the droids still standing attempted to return fire, moving with the precision and quickness that only a machine could manage, the B two droids and remaining B one droids lobbed shots in the general direction of the incoming fire, but to no avail.
The hands of 8-7 and 9-3 moved their rifles swiftly from droid to droid, offering little reaction time to the surprised machines. The mere engagement took less than twenty seconds. With only the quick reload of 9-3's rifle breaking the flow of fire. Without any prompting the duo began backing up from the muddy lookout into the slope of the hill.
"Well we mopped up the droids, still two humans there, not to mention-" came the voice of 8-7, nearly identical in tone to the voice that accompanied him. However before he could continue the solider paused and lay silent in the mud of the hill. A loud yet unmistakable turbine sound was approaching in the distance. Augmented by his helmet's sensory array 9-3 whispered almost inaudibly into the channel, "That's an AAT…kriff…they had backup on the way."
"Any other vantage points?"
"Yeah. Just around the hills here. My guess it's coming out of the canyon."
A mike click conveyed yet again an order with no words.
The rain continued to pour from the sky above, with an increased fury that seemed to convey anger at the recently exchanged gunfire. Silently the duo made their way down the hill before an earth-shattering roar detonated near the hill. The duo immediately turned to look at their former position, an explosion had just rocked the hill near their crude outlook. Another shot rocked the earth beneath the gladiators as another explosion slammed into the mud, closer to where they had dispatched the sniper emplacement.
The faint blue Ts of the helmets looked at one another before 9-3 pointed down at a further muddy entrenchment. "Quick down here." The duo moved quickly, forgoing some of their silence as explosions continued to slam into the area where they had been. Looking up from a ditch 8-7 finally got a clear look at where the fire was coming from.
An AAT along with several B two droids was at the entrance of the canyon. The humans that 9-3 had identified were visible, panicked and yelling at the tank's commander who had the hatch open. The droid commander, another series one machine, seemed to look down into his tank as the AAT opened fire again at the hill. More mud flew into the sky as the tank emptied further shots into the landscape.
The man within the suit of armor clicked his back teeth to open a new comms channel.
"Advisor, this is Omicron, we have infantry and armor guarding remains of the objective."
"Roger that Omicron, patching you into the CAS channel"
Mere moments later a gruff voice split the comms channel of the two muddy soldiers in a loud voice that shook them from their quiet demeanor.
"Green 6-3 CAS on standby. Laze the target, we'll be down in five seconds."
8-7 looked at the AAT and touched the left side of his helmet, a stream of invisible light streaked from his position and shone upon the enemy tank.
Without warning a loud roar of rapid laser fire erupted from the sky, followed almost instantly by set of explosions ripping through the droids and tank. The explosions paused for a brief moment. Smoke was lifting from the droids, but the AAT was still operational. The turret turned skyward, and the barrel of the tank let out an angry red energy shot.
It never got a second shot off.
Another hailstorm of blue laser fire cracked the sky and rained upon the AAT followed by loud deafening explosion. Shrapnel exploded and rained for several hundred meters around the tank. The duo of soldiers did not even show the slightest hint of fear or hesitation as burning metal rained down around them.
"Good hit Green 6-3. Armor and infantry destroyed."
"Roger, Green 6-3 Sortie complete, Bingo fuel and egressing out, take care Omicron. Over."
A trio of three blue engine lights streaked overhead, accompanied by a sonic boom as the single V-19 Torrent fighter soared upwards, climbing back into the cold depths of space. For the first time 8-7 reached for his muddy short rifle on his thigh. 9-3 already had configured his rifle back into its short stubby configuration.
"Advisor, Omicron continuing with objective."