"Darkness spreads only as fast as the light fades." – Unknown Jedi Master
It was dark. It was always dark before a mission. The only lights in the LAAT gunship came from the four blue visors in the shielded compartment. The air whistled by outside and there was a slight rocking each time an object came close enough to cause a disturbance in the air around it. The hum of the engines overcame the sound of breathing in the helmet of Republic Commando RC-1292, Jace.
"Blasted techs couldn't think to install lights eh? I hate the dark…" a voice finally broke the silence.
Jace looked to the source and the numbers RC-1173 flashed up "Ty, there's a reason there aren't any lights, we don't want the droids to see some pretty lights and take us down, besides dark is where we work best,"
Before anything else could be said a hologram appeared, a Jedi standing respectfully at attention "There is not much time so I'll cut straight to the chase, there's a rather large Separatist droid factory that is causing our front a rather large problem, do whatever you must to destroy this factory and reach the extraction point, may the force be with you," the Jedi bowed and the image went away.
"Sometimes I wonder if General Eisho realizes that we always do our job, at any cost," the somewhat maniacal voice of RC-3066, Manyx, sounded.
Jace ignored Manyx and went over the check list one last time. All gear was stowed and any needed was equipped. They were approximately five minutes away from the drop off point, and the team was all there. Looking to his right the fourth member of Alpha team was shown in a faint outline with his I.D. number above his hung head.
RC-1402, Kodi, was always quiet. There weren't many times he ever opened his mouth to speak, why that was even Jace didn't know. When it was needed he would tell the team what his opinions were but he always seemed to be silent. Smiling he let a small chuckle go "Maybe our boy Kodi here will pry the front door open for us,"
Manyx let a laugh go "Yeah, then I could really cause some chaos!" his dark voice seemed to savor the thought of blowing things up.
"Yeah, then Jace, Kodi and I get to clean up the mess," Ty replied giving Manyx a light shove.
Jace shook his head and decided it was time to crack down "Alright stow the chatter, remember what we're here to do, we're taking the back door. According to these schematics there's a secluded area right behind-"
"INCOMING!" the pilot yelled from the front.
Training taking over Jace stood and braced himself, grabbing the hand hold above him and letting the pilot do his job. Manyx and Kodi had done the same, however Ty had walked up to the cockpit behind the pilot.
"I'm not seeing anything!" his heavy accent cut through the slowly increasing clanking of metal.
"Doesn't mean it's not there!" the pilot yelled back.
Suddenly an explosion rocked the craft and a red light came on, an alarm following it. As Jace took a deep breath another explosion tore the gunship in half, the front section taking the pilot, Kodi and Ty, and the rear taking Jace and Manyx. Almost as quickly as it happened, it ended, with the scene ending in darkness.
"Jace, hello?" a muffled voice called from the outside. Opening his eyes Jace moved his head back and fourth a few times before realizing that his helmet was knocked around quite a bit, taking the time to let it start up. The first sight he was greeted with was the black smeared face plate of Manyx, a single dark red streak going vertically over his visor where his left eye was underneath his helmet.
"I'm still alive Manyx…but barely…whats the situation?" Jace asked in an attempt to get a hold on the situation.
"Gunships down and we're still a ways from our target, no contact from Kodi or Ty," Manyx reported "but look on the bright side, we get to move for miles and we still have plenty of ammo to shoot some critters with!"
Jace chuckled a little bit, if Manyx was joking about it then the situation wasn't completely upside down. Standing up Jace looked at his team mate to make sure that his pride wasn't stopping him from reporting an injury. But all he could see was the black smeared plating with the occasional tribal-esque marking.
His own armor was relatively simple. Primarily white with gray markings taking up several plates of his armor. The red highlighted the bottom parts of his T visor along with the edges of several plates and the plates covering his knuckles and top of his hands. Shaking his head again he checked for his DC-17m, relieved when he felt the pistol grip. Reaching into his pack and feeling around more he realized that the attachments assigned to him were gone, most likely lost or destroyed when the gunship went down.
"Do you have your attachments?" Jace asked with a disappointed sigh as he looked at Manyx.
"Only my sniper rifle," Manyx replied with noted disgust "my demo pack's completely useless, bent up and out of shape,"
"Lose sleep over it later, come on, we've still got a job to do…" Jace moved past Manyx and started in the direction of the rendezvous point they had decided on before the mission began.
"I'll try to save it till our next bathroom break,"
Ignoring the comment Jace looked up towards the sky "Come on, lets move, I'm not sure how long we have till something worse than you shows up…"