I walked sophisticatedly down the long corridors of the central command station my master and I were stationed at for a rescue mission on Alderaan. It would seem that I had misplaced my troops for the land assault part of the rescue mission, or what my master and I liked to call the distraction. From about a meter or two away, I could hear my troops laughing and talking and having a grand old time as they prepared for battle. As I continued to stride down the unending paths through our station my millennium blonde hair flew behind me in an almost graceful manor and as I stopped in front of the nearest door on my right the part that was not held up by my hair ornament fell back down to the bottom of my shoulder blades. The door flew open from the bottom and as I walked in, all of my troops stood and saluted.

"Commander," One of the clones began. "We await your orders."

I smiled at how formal they were being with me, but I tried to keep it hidden. Over the year and a half that I've been a padawan, and the eight months I've been a commander, they have never been this formal. I rested my hands on a nearby table top and looked at them, my hazel eyes glinting with extreme excitement and the clear gems that lined the outside of my eyes glittered.

"I hope you're all ready, boys," I put a challenging tone in my voice and I let my tugging smile show through my delicate and pale features. "Because we're moving out!"

"Sir, yes sir!" They all answered in unison, and saluted again. The few of my men that did not have their helmets on were smiling at my expression.

"So put your helmets on and lets get out there!" I put my fist in the air and everyone else followed in my example, cheering loudly. "Okay everyone file out and take your sectors to the docking bay. Further instruction will be given then."

As everyone left, I took the liberty of grabbing myself a nice sized blaster, and clipped it to my black boot. One of my men stopped just before leaving and turned around.

"Permission to speak, sir," He had his helmet on, but I could sense he was beaming.

I looked up after clipping the gun to my boot and smiled. "Permission granted, and for starters you can tell me whats up with all this formal talk and saluting and stuff, Mac," Mac is the Red leader of my team.

He chuckled. "See we just thought it'd be fun to try somethin' new, Sir."

I laughed and pushed him out. "Get outta here, Red leader!" I rolled my eyes and headed in the opposite direction of the docking bay, towards the briefing room where my master, Varian Kai, and the admiral were waiting along with two other Clone commanders for a quick review of our plan.

"Bout time you got here, Mars," My master greeted me in his usual upbeat tone.

"It's not like I'm late," I defended.

"Oh and you're never late," He continued sarcastically. Before I could get another word in, the admiral got our attention by clearing his throat.

The two clone commanders were chuckling at my master's last remark, but were soon hushed by the admiral as we were.

"Sorry, admiral," One of them apologized.

"Quite..." He started a little skeptically. Admiral Quar never agreed with the way my master and I ran things. He favored order a little more than my master did, and a lot more than I did. "Now for the frontal assault-"

"Distraction," My master and I both corrected instinctually without caring to look up from the blue holographic diagram in front of us that was projected onto a circular table in the middle of the briefing room. Both Master Kai and I knew that this bothered the admiral to quite an extent, but we just thought it was funny. I let another small smile grace my shinny bright pearl pink lips and continued to listen to our battle strategy.

"Commander Beto will assemble her squadron of Elites here," Admiral Quar pointed to me momentarily, then to a forest clearing just outside the Alderaanian Palace on the hologram. "While they serve as our main..." he paused, choosing his next words carefully. "...distraction, Commander Kai will lead a squadron of five or six troopers into the palace to rescue the princess."

"What about the rest of the troopers?" I asked curiously. "You can't expect just me and my men to fight off an entire army of tin cans."

The admiral sighed. "Commander Sail and his fleet will be joining you on the battle field, and Commander Blade will be serving as your back up, if needed."

Everyone nodded.

"I can't control the way everything is done around here, so I can only tell you where you are stationed for this rescue mission. The rest will be entirely up to you, is that clear?"

"Yes, sir," The two clones said as my master and I just nodded.

"Then good luck to you all," The admiral finished, and dismissed us to the docking bay.

"You were pretty good back there, Mars," My master complimented me as we walked over to where our troops were getting ready to disembark.

"Well I did learn from the best, Master," With that we separated and I headed over to my team.

"Ok, troopers, listen up!" I shouted to my squad. "These clankers aren't going to give up without a fight, so be ready for anything."

"Sir, yes, sir!" I see they were still having their fun.

"Before you go out there are a few rules you must be aware about. Master Kai will be inside retrieving the Princess from the Separatists, so absolutely no explosives near the palace wall. Second and finally, there is to be no disorganization. I must know where each and everyone of you are today so that we don't leave anyone behind. Is that understood?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Good, now I want the red and green sectors to go to the first gunship and blue and yellow sectors to go to the second. My red and green leaders will go to the fighters and the blue and yellow leaders will take four troopers and board the walkers. Let's move out!"

My team was soon ready and off. I stood in the second gunship with my blue and yellow sectors. To give further orders, I touched a circular button on my thin black com link that was connected to the dusty blue arm guard on my right arm.

"Fighters and walkers, I want you in first. This should give Commander Kai just enough time to sneak in without too many of the droids seeing them. The blue and yellow sectors and I will follow shortly after to make our plan more believable, then red and green sectors will follow making our distraction a little more...distracting as we go along. By this time Commander Kai should be at the princesses holding cell. We have to keep the droids occupied enough so they don't notice their biggest bargaining chip coming and going." I didn't know I could talk that much. Honestly I had no idea, but the instructions weren't over yet. If my master taught me anything, it was that careful planning is not enough. Communication is the key to success on the battle field.

"I want both my fighters and walkers advancing now," I said into the com link.

"Yes, Commander," was the response I got back from Mac who was my red leader. He was in charge of one of the fighters. I also got clearance from my two walkers and I watched intently as they advanced on the droid army positioned outside the main wall. I couldn't see the enemy that easily, but that's just how I wanted it, and I was hoping that the enemy hadn't seen our gunships yet either.

"Gunships fall back over the forest. I want you in as low as you can get without damaging yourselves," as before, my orders were followed to a 'T'.

Just then my com link light flashed. My masters voice came over the com link. "Marsena, what's your position?"

"My squad and I are still aboard the gunships, Master. I sent the two fighters and walkers ahead, and I'm about ready to take about half my troops after them."

"Why only half?" My master sounded a little bewildered.

"Just trust me with my troops will you, and stick to the plan..." there was an awkward silence. "Master, just...please...trust me, okay?"

"Okay Mars, just...be careful alright?"

"Got it! This is Commander Beto, over and out!" I signed off with my master and continued to give orders to my troops.

"Red and Green, wait here until I give the signal."

"No problem," was the response I got back. After turning the com link off, I turned to my Blue and Yellow sectors.

"Ok, from here we jump, we don't want those tin cans to know we're here just yet."

"Those clankers won't know what hit 'em," one of my troops made a fist and smashed it into the palm of his other hand.

"Exactly," I agreed. I turned my com on one last time, this time paging my message to my troops and my master, "Until the battle field, it's all stealth mode."