STAR SECTOR 64115…
The blue white blur that was hyperspace slowly stopped swirling and the stars stretched as the Judicator came out of hyperspace. Commander Iktal and his officers sat on the bridge, all quietly cleaning their armor. Iktal grimaced when he noticed a particularly deep pit in his matte gray helmet. It was right above the eye on the glowing red faceplate of his recently reissued helmet. He decided that no droid had fired this shot. It must have been a separatist mercenary. Droids were never so inaccurate. He remembered his old armor before the old style had been phased out. He had only had this armor for two months and it was already full of pockmarks. An incessant buzzing noise told him that it was time to take the small squad of troops to his gunship and begin briefing. He stood and put his armor on over his black body glove. He walked out the door and made his way to the hangar, using his in-helmet com-link to call his best 23 troops to his customized LAAT/i gunship. When he arrived the troopers were all waiting for him, oiling and cleaning their rifles and pistols. He activated the holo-proj and the blue tinted picture of the asteroid on which the Jedi, Vega daboda had disappeared. He began, his strong voice filling the room, "This is asteroid 7763. It has a class C atmosphere so we will not be taking our helmets off. Make sure that your body glove is fastening correctly to your helmet before we leave. We must stay together at all times and watch each other's backs. We will be searching in this structure (holo-proj shows infra red scan of large artificial cave) for Master Vega Daboda. If she is dead, we are supposed to determine the cause of death and proceed to the Rhen Var system to remove the separatists there. If she is alive than we are to bring her to our ship and take her to the Jedi temple for debriefing. Don't shoot unless you are sure a life form is hostile and take care of the equipment."
All of the clones replied to the customary good luck by replying, "the equipment take care of you, sir!" in unison. They all clambered aboard the gunship and its engines flared, sending over a dozen clones to their doom…
Chapter II
The troops landed successfully and started moving towards the structure. The commander was glad that his armor was fully vac-proof because it was very cold on the asteroids surface. All of the clones entered the cave at a sinkhole by using their liquid cable guns. Motion sensors didn't register anything but infrared was picking up a warm cluster in the east and north. All of the troopers activated their repulsor packs and jetted of towards the warmth. What they found was a disgusting gnawed corpse. It was not human and the ground around it appeared to have been liquefied by some sort of acid. Obviously this body was fresh as it was still warm. Iktal attempted to cut away a piece of the shell but acid burned his sample vial when he put the flesh in it. He noticed the blood was a peculiar green and seemed to burn right through metals and stone alike. He activated the ray shielding on his armor just in case one of these acid blood creatures attacked. He ordered the group forward and they used helmet spotlights to search the cave floor. About a klick past the entrance they found the Jedi's body. Motion sensors were beginning to pick up life now, sonar told Iktal that the motion was form creatures similar or identical to the one latched on the dead woman's face. Her ribs were bent out and crystals of blood were frozen around her corpse. Iktal ordered a medic and two troopers to carry this out to the gunship and lock it in the storage bay. Iktal pulled out his dual carbines and activated the crosshairs in his HUD. He set of the small creatures as target one and told his troopers to set for stun. He did likewise and then they all shot at the target. He nicked it with the stun blast and it stopped moving suddenly they were all over, latching onto helmets everywhere. Blue lasers danced everywhere, each one hitting its mark, but the creatures kept coming. One latched over a trooper's helmet and cracked his visor. A scream came across the comm.-net and then new black creatures started appearing. These creatures were the type whose corpse he had found. They attacked, biting clawing and driving their tails through the spines of the troopers. When they began eating the dead Iktal gave the retreat order. One of the black creatures slammed into him and its teeth closed over his helmet. The ray shielding had saved him, but its energy was reduce by fifteen percent. He put the carbines back in favor of his DC-16S repeating Tibanna gas powered rifle. Hi fired exploding huge chunks out of the creatures with the explosive green lasers. Only four troopers remained and they were all jetting back to the gunship on full power. Iktal told his troopers to keep going as he stopped. He began setting an enormous baradium time bomb on the ground, despite all of the tail strikes and scratches he was receiving. His shields were down to forty two percent and he still had 30 seconds before the timer was set. He began blasting at the creatures wit his DC in one hand while setting the bomb in the other. Drips of acid blood fell around him, testimony of his forty odd kills. 10, 9, 8, 7, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, bleep! The timer was set. He flew towards the gunship, killing as many of the creatures as he could. Seventy-two, seventy-three, he counted his kill one by one. He now threw a glop grenade into the midst of 8 creatures. WUMMPH! They were snug in goop, struggling to strike him with their tails, he blasted more until he lost track of his kills. He was beginning to tire but on ¼ klick to go… he jumped and heard the lovely sound of his gunship approaching. He heard its turblolasers fire and its turrets send out their solid beams… it flew over him and launched a tow cable at him. The troopers on board wound him in and he took the gunners seat. He blasted more and more aliens until he was numb form squeezing the triggers. He glanced at his chrono, and realized there was thirty seconds before the bomb exploded. He commed the judicators bridge to start the calculation for hyperspace and told the gunship pilot to dock at the star destroyer. They leapt after the planetoid exploded, leaving behind only rubble… and a now thawed very angry alien queen…
Epilogue.
Once again sitting on the bridge, Commander Iktal calculated the losses. His best medic had lost and arm and 19 troopers were dead. He actually thought these specs were good, compared to his last mission. He moved on to new business and sent in a request for a cybernetic limb with medic attachments for CM-1992…
This story was written by me, Alex " Commander AXEL" Nickerson for my website and for your enjoyment. Visit to se my far from completed website.