Control Room 138
Mathew Kahgee
1st Hour English
We ran down the hall, dodging blaster fire as it flew over head. The four of us ducked behind some debris from an explosion. There was only four of us in a squad. Commander Eirik, sporting yellow stripes on his shoulders, is the leader. He specializes in everything really. Captain Raynor, sporting red stripes on his shoulders, is the demolitionist. Lieutenant Deirge has blue stripes on his shoulders, and is the sharpshooter. And finally, Sergeant Phoenix is the electronics specialist. We are all commandos for the Republic.
Eirik peaked out around the corner of some debris to meet a barrage of blaster fire. He came back into the safety of debris.
"What now?" Raynor asked.
Eirik sighed, shaking his head. "I don't know," he said, though no noise emitted from him or his helmet. There was a comm link system interconnecting the helmets together and not allowing anyone near them to hear unless they were on the same channel.
Raynor motioned with his hands an explosion, "Let's blow us up some tinnies," he said.
Eirik stared at him funny, though his expression was hidden behind the faceless helmet of a soldier. "Tinnies?"
"What did your squad call 'em?" Raynor asked.
"Droids," Eirik responded. Eirik nodded and motioned two grenades up and over the debris. Eirik and Raynor reached for their grenades from their belts and tossed two over, hearing an explosion followed by shattering and raining hot droid shrapnel hitting the ground. Eirik peaked around again and noted it was clear. "Where's Deirge and Phoenix?" But Raynor only shrugged. Then a voice over the comm chimed in, "Over here." Eirik looked up and saw Phoenix and Deirge coming out of a room, "Had to hide from your grenades, or else we would have been together with you sooner."
"Enough chatter, lets go on." Eirik said, extending his hand and pushed a button on his gauntlet, and up popped a holo chart of the building they were in. "Man, we have to go all the way up there." He murmured to himself. He shook his head, "Commando's, move out." And the four started moving again.
After a while of running up stairs, they encountered the floor they needed to be at. "Door breach," Eirik motioned and moved to the side. Raynor knelt to the right of the door and fixed his grenade attachment to his rifle while Phoenix set charges to blow the door down. Deirge moved with Eirik to a side. The door exploded and Kie pivoted to face the blown open door, and fired off three grenades. He waited, pivoted out and noted nothing left.
"All clear Commander." Raynor said, standing and walking through the door. He scanned the hall way. Nothing but doors upon doors. "Commander, which one do we need?"
Eirik opened up his holo chart again and looked for the objective marker, "Command center 138." He said, looking around. He pointed out a door on the far end, "There." He said, running towards it, the others followed. When they reached it, and Phoenix bent down and shoved a microscope in through the crack of the door at the bottom. He glanced around the command room, sighing. "Problem Sergeant?"
Phoenix nodded, "Yes sir, a lot of tinnies in there, I'd say about twenty of them," he said, standing back up.
"Grenade attachments everyone," Eirik ordered, putting his own on. There was a collective clicking as the attachment was made and was heard over the silence of the hallway, was followed by the order for a hand ram.
Deirge came up with the hand held ram. One, two… Eirik motioned with his fingers, and Deirge swung the ram as hard as he could, crushing the door with a lot of pressure. The door itself snapped in half, and then all was heard was thwoop thwoop of the grenades launching from the commandos' rifles. An explosion followed by retaliating fire was heard, and down went Zev.
"Man down." Eirik said, crouching down by Deirge.
"I'm alright commander… leave me…" Said Deirge
"I don't think so Lt., we'll get you all fixed up." Eirik took off Deirge's thigh plate and pulled back the black body-suit, and took out two single use syringes. He stuck them both into Zev's thigh and wrote a P and a Z on the forehead of his helmet. P for pain killer, Z for blood loss. Why not B for blood loss? Because B looks too much like a P when hurried or under fire. Eirik, standing back up, took off the grenade attachment and fired several rounds of ammo into the door, destroying several droids. "Clear," came Eirik's voice, walking in. He noted several of the droids lay broken in half, some splintered with wood from the door breaking, another lay against the wall with the door in his chest plate. "Raynor set the charges."
"How much commander?"
"P for plenty." Eirik said with a laugh. He shook his head, "Like we were taught." His thoughts were disrupted by blaster fire outside the door way.
"Looks like our entrance was noticed." Phoenix said, moving out into the hall.
"You think?" Eirik asked, following him out to buy Raynor some time.
Three destroyers rolled up, unrolled themselves and opened fire. Eirik and Phoenix hid behind some more debris, coming out once the droids weapons over heated. Two went down, and three took their places.
"Today Raynor!" Eirik shouted, ducking down to avoid a debris shower.
"Can't rush an artist Commander," was his response.
"Would you like to tell the destroyers that?" Phoenix chimed in.
"Done," said Raynor
"Move your shiny cans in gear soldiers!" came Eirik's voice over the comm link.
Raynor lay on top of Deirge for a moment, and looped his arms through the netting of Deirge' webbing for his pack. He turned over so he was on his stomach and Deirge was on his back. He stood from the ground and headed his way up several flights of stairs towards the roof. Eirik ran past him to get a better signal.
"Assault ship Implacable, this is Charlie squad, requesting evacuation upon this buildings coordinates, latitude 85, longitude 85, west 19°," Eirik said, running up the stairs.
"Charlie squad, this is assault ship Majestic, replacing Implacable which went down ten minutes ago. Affirmative on your evacuation. Gunship on it's way down to bring you up. Be there in five."
"Roger." And Eirik cut the communication, turning and stopping them, "We've got five minutes to get out of here, Raynor, what are the charges set for?"
"Six minutes."
"We've got exactly four minutes to get to the roof." Eirik said relatively calm. This is what he was trained for, under pressure jobs. Hard jobs others couldn't do. He turned and continued up the stairs, running a little faster despite his cool disposition. They busted through the door leading to the roof to see a Gunship hovering there. "The prettiest sight I've ever seen," he said, running towards the ship.
Once he got there, he waited for Raynor with Deirge on his back to load up first. The medics took him to the back and took note of P and Z on his forehead and took care of what was needed first. Raynor and Phoenix loaded up next, and Eirik last. "Lift off, quickly pilot." Eirik said, taking off his helmet.
The collective hiss as the other two troopers took off their helmets was barley audible over the roar of the gunships' engines as it floated up, and blasted off. And not a moment to soon, for as they got about ten feet away, the building exploded, sending a shockwave towards the fleeing gunship. The ship rocked a lot really, and Kie had to steady himself so he wouldn't fall out. The Gunship stabilized, and blasted off towards space. Eirik's comm link activated, "Commander, I want a report on what happened when you get back. You'll get two days off, and then back into the action." Came a voice.
"Yes sir." Eirik responded.
The life of a clone commando is never boring, nor do you get to experience the better things in life. No family. You age rapidly. You die, you get replaced, that's how it works. No one cares for you.
The ones who do care are the greatest leaders of them all, who care for their troopers lives. But those who don't, will send you away without a second thought. If you come back or your body blows up, gets eaten, falls in a hole etc. etc. This is the life of a clone, bred only to fight, ready to kill, ready to die.