RC-1568 "Buck" Squad Sergeant
RC-3721 "Nuts" Squad demolitions and mechanical expert
RC-4443 "Nofour" Squad Communications and computer expert
RC-10006/6215 "Vorpan" Squad sniper and infiltration expert
Rho Squad, Battle of Geonosis, Hour 2.
"Stack up. Breach in ten, two-one set the charge." said Buck as I slid into position behind Nofour, deece at the ready scanning the area behind us for battle droids or Geonosians while Nuts set the breaching charge. As I scanned the hard floor of the canyon I made sure to check up as well, scanning the cracked walls of red stone trying to see any signs of cave networks that could suddenly spew forth a cloud of giant bugs armed with spears and their strange sonic weaponry. A distant explosion made me think of the main battle that was waging out on the fields of Geonosis. How many of our brothers were dying out there? This was the 3rd bunker we would be clearing in just over an hour trying to find a communications nexus for Nofour to work his magic on.
I was still having a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that this was more than just a training exercise. So far it had actually been easier than some of the training programs that sergeant Bralor had thrown at us over the past 6 years that I had been with Rho squad, and with every bunker we cleared I half expected to hear her voice calling "Endex" over coms.
Unable to see any immediate threats around us I shifted my eyes to the side of my HUD and blinked twice rapidly, activating my ready run in my brothers' helmets. Within a second the three runes on the bottom left corner of my own HUD turned green signifying that the rest of the squad was ready as well, a countdown timer appeared over the runes 4... 3... 2... 1...
BOOM! The breaching charge went off, the sound automatically dulled by my Katarn armour to protect my hearing. A split second after the charge went off Buck was ducking through the newly made hole in the blast door Nofour right behind him, Buck turning hard to the left and Nofour hard to the right. As Nuts started in after Nofour I heard the familiar sounds of a DC-17m firing, a quick trio of shots from the right followed by another trio to the left and I knew that something in that room was dying already.
As Nuts cleared the door and started into the room slightly to the left I ducked in deece at the ready aiming slightly to the right. I saw two B-1s and a geonosian standing a few meters in front of me, the bank of consoles behind them seemed to fade out as I focused in on my targets. The two B-1s were facing away from me starting to turn around, the geonosian beginning to bring his sonic weapon to bear on Nuts to my left. I sighted in instinctively on the bug, depressing the trigger of my deece for the half second necessary for three bolts to fly out, two connecting solidly with the creatures thorax the final one ending in between his eyes. Before I could see the results of my shots I was aiming to the left, depressing the trigger again and catching one of the B-1's in the back of the head, taking it clean off. As I was about to swing to the right and finish off my final target my leg suddenly buckled, as I fell to the floor I heard the distinctive warble of the geonosian's sonic weapons and a red warning rune flashed on my HUD. As I fell I fired on the droid, my aim knocked off by the sudden attack from behind my shots went wide and hit the screens of the computer banks behind it causing them to blow out in a shower of sparks. "CONTACT BEHIND" I shout instinctively as the floor of the bunker rushes towards me.
I hit the ground and immediately press off with my left arm, pushing my body up and bringing my deece to bear one handed on the droid I had failed to destroy. Dropping the idea of the neat triple tap I pull down on the trigger and keep it down, spraying the droid with blue bolts of plasma as it jerks and falls. I try to turn around but my leg feels like it's made of lead and wont work making it difficult. I manage to flop over to see a pair of geonosians being peppered with blue plasma bolts from three directions. I turn my head and scan the rest of the room as fast as I can. "Clear!" I shout when I can see no active threats. Only now that it was at least semi safe did I realize my leg hurt. And when I say hurt I mean that my leg felt like knot of pain and agony. I felt my suit begin to shunt it's internal bacta reserves and pain killers to my leg. As Nuts knelt down beside me I looked down and saw the shin plate of my armour was blown right off, Nofour and Buck started towards the bunker entrance, scanning outside for additional threats.
"Look Vorpan, if you didn't want to have to run anymore you could have just faked being sick, no need to go and hurt yourself." Said Nuts as he ran a gloved hand over my leg checking for breaks.
"Very funny Nuts, I'll be fine, bugs just caught me by surpri-OUCH!" I spat as he reached my knee and a fresh wave of pain shot out from where his hand was in contact with it.
"Looks like a bum knee sarge." Said Nuts to Buck
"Very scientific diagnosis two-one" said buck "Can you walk oh-six or do we need to call for casevac?"
I started to stand and Nuts helped me up, I experimentally put some weight on my left leg, feeling a fresh wave of agony spring from my knee, but not as bad as it had been. "Bacta and painkillers are working sarge, give me a few minutes and I can walk."
"Right, four-three check and see if our objective is here, two-one watch the door with oh-six I'm calling this in."
Nofour moved off towards the bank of computers and began tapping away at one of the keypads as Buck stood up straighter, almost at attention, as he always did when speaking to superiors over coms like they were standing in front of him. I hobbled over to the left side of the door stepping gingerly over one of the dead geonosians on the way. I swapped my deece over to its sniper attachment as I moved, my hands going through the motions without any conscious thought on my part. I leaned up against the remains of the blast door and checked down my side of the canyon, knowing that Nuts was doing the same on his side. I pulled my deece up to my shoulder and made a more thorough sweep of the walls through the electronic scope than I had when we were outside the bunker, and noticed several cracks that could be big enough to let a geonosian through, I marked them on our helmets topographical map to let the rest of the squad know of their existence and kept watch while Nofour worked and Buck dealt with command.
"No good Buck, just another relay." Said Nofour, moving back into the center of the room.
"Alright then, centcom has given us the ok to move on to the next possible location, end of the canyon out on the flats." Buck replied "Communications bunker again, lets move."
As we moved out into the canyon again I was walking with a distinct limp, despite the localized painkillers and bacta my knee felt like someone was sticking a vibroblade in it every time I put weight on it but I kept going anyway. No way in hell I was letting my brothers down because of a little discomfort. As we made our way down the canyon it was eerily quiet, the sounds of battle could still be heard getting louder the closer to the open plain we got but the canyon itself seemed completely lifeless. As we reached the end of the canyon we all stopped and stared for a moment in awe.
It seemed like the whole Grand Army of the Republic was fighting every droid in the galaxy. Thousands of troopers were advancing across the plain towards thousands of battle droids, the occasional lightsaber could be seen leading groups of troopers here and there as well. Sheets of blue and red energy were going back and forth between the two armies, larties were flying over the field destroying dozens of droids at a time with strafing runs from their particle beams or missiles. As we watched a LAAT/c came flying in with an AT-TE, dropped it off and swooped off back towards the assault ships.
"Alright Rho, enough gawking, time to do our jobs." Said Buck as he moved off to the left towards a small bunker built into the side of a hill several hundred meters away.
"Looks like the white jobs are earning their pay today." said Nuts.
"White jobs don't get paid Nuts, and neither do we." replied Nofour.
"Well they're earning their ration cubes then. Better than we've done." Nuts countered.
"Not our fault the intel we've been given so far is osik" I added to the conversation.
"Cut the chatter Rho! We're here to do a job, not discuss the sights." interrupted Buck.
We moved low now, rock to rock as the occasional bolt of energy or missile was spilling out of the main battle and landing near us. Moving low put even more pressure on my knee however and I was starting to breathe raggedly as the pain stabbed through my leg at every step. Several minutes later we were a hundred meters away from the entrance to the last communications bunker looking down at it from atop a small hill.
"Okay commandos, we're doing this one a little differently. Two-one and four-three will stack up with me, oh-six I want you to set up in those rocks 50 meters east of the entrance. If those damn bugs come at us from behind again I want you to give them a nasty surprise" Said Buck. It was a solid plan, kept me with my newly acquired bad leg from slowing down the breach and prepared us for what had caused said newly acquired bad leg.
"Move" Said Buck and we broke cover, sprinting across the hard ground towards our objective. It only took a few moments for me to fall behind my brothers as they made their way to the bunker entrance, fortunately I had less distance to cover and found myself among the rocks Buck had designated earlier. Eyes watering from the pain I chose a low rock and lay down behind it, setting my deece's bipod on the rock I sighted in on my brothers stacking up on the bunker, then began scanning around watching for any surprises. I activated my ready rune to signify I was in position. Counting down in my head I knew exactly when Nuts would finish with the breaching charge, when Buck would begin the count. Just before I thought the charge should go off I heard an explosion nearby, but from the wrong direction. Twisting my head towards the sound I saw a LAAT/i spewing smoke plummeting from the sky, heading straight towards my brothers!
"INCOMING!" I screamed into my helmet, willing my brothers to move. I watched in horror as the larty hit the ground and slid right into the bunker crashing into the rest of Rho squad. I was on my feet running towards the crash before I had time to think, instinct taking over and injury forgotten. "Centcom this is Rho squad! I need casevac at my grid location! Larty down, I see movement in the cockpit, it crashed right into my squad! I repea-" I was cut off mid sentence by a bright flash, and a almighty roar as the LAAT/i's missile payload exploded. I felt myself being lifted and thrown backwards, my last thought as my head connected with the rock I had taken cover behind moments before was that I had failed my brothers.
Authors Note:
Hey, this is my first time writing something in many years so I hope it's ok. This is the backstory for a character I will be playing in a Star Wars Saga campaign. I wrote out the typical paragraph of backstory but felt compelled to do something more for this character and this was the result. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed it.