Chapter 2

Dust Hole

"RC-6603, this is CC-9650, your new adivsor for Grave Squad. You and your squad are to find Geonosian commander Nar Gutts. You will find him underground in his lair. Go there and eliminate him. Leave no Geonosian alive, and you will have complete victory. Fair warning, they might have droids in there as well you will have to deal with. Before you get to your target, oh-three, make sure you rendezvous with Grave Squad. You will need them for the mission. Just note some of your squad members may be in the cave before you, so don't go looking everywhere, oh-three. Advisor out."

-Captain Bullseye to squad lead of Grave Squad, Major Dunkel

The blast doors to the LAAT finally opened fully. Dust flew into Dunkel's helmet as the LAAT zoomed by many forces already on the ground. Already he was getting dirty. Not exactly bad in his opinion, the dust offered good camouflage on Geonosis. It was good for it to come now as well, because if he rolled in the middle of the battle ground to get full camouflage he'd be dead sooner than later.

The image of Bullseye disappeared from the LAAT, and some of the clones looked at him and his armor. His armor was painted all black except for red markings on it. He had a pauldron colored red and a kama that is pitch black, with red on the top of the belt holding it up. The armor where the top of his chest would be was red and so were the back of his gauntlet's hands and kneecaps. His helmet's T-shaped visor glowed red in the darkness of the LAAT, something the others' helmet's visors did not.

"Check out that armor, he looks like he's worth a million bucks," one of the clone troopers whispered to the other.

The other replied back, "Worth of scrap metal, he looks more like a droid to me." Dunkel turned his head at the clone trooper, who stopped chuckling at his joke when the glow from Dunkel's helmet stared right at him. "Sorry, sir... I just never seen Katarn-class armor before. Especially one painted black instead of grey."

Dunkel stared back out of the LAAT. They were one of the LAATs more to the right of the rest. He looked out in the direction closest to seeing the area with no LAATs. In the way he saw another LAAT. There were four clones inside of it; A commander, a captain, and two sergeants.

"Any day now, Falcon," Dunkel yelled back to the pilot of the LAAT.

"Sorry, Major, we appear to be in heavy traffic please hold your complaints till the end of the trip," the pilot, Falcon shouted into the back of the LAAT. Dunkel grunted once more and looked out at the other LAAT.

All of the sudden, the LAAT shook. It kept shaking and a few clones not hanging on fell out. And then the LAAT span in full circles as it flew towards the ground. "What's going on- Aaaah!" said a clone trooper as he flew out the door. Dunkel was still hanging on calmly to the handles on the roof. Part of the LAAT's wing flew off, and it seemed to have hit another LAAT, however that LAAT didn't crash. It might of been the LAAT Dunkel was just looking at, however he couldn't tell or seemed to care.

Finally, the LAAT was about to hit the ground. Dunkel leaped out of the LAAT just before it crashed. Only a few clone troopers left in the LAAT noticed and followed Dunkel's movement. The LAAT crashed into the nearby wall of rocks.

Dunkel walked up to the cockpit, where Falcon was dead. "Went too fast on the road. Won't be taking services again," he said to the body. After his dark humor, he then grabbed his blaster, a DC-17m, from the ground and ran off.

Now far and separated from the clone squad he was in the LAAT with, Dunkel blasted down battle droids who got in his way. Each droid had one shot one kill as Dunkel popped their heads off. Oil splashed on to his visor and ground, however his HUD helped clean it off. When he charged by clone troopers, they stopped for a second and stared, causing them to get shot if they weren't careful enough.

"Hey take a look at that one! Another commando! We're gonna win this for sure now!" a clone trooper shouted as he ducked to dodge a shot. Dunkel didn't say anything and kept pushing ahead shooting droids.

"Oh-three this is your advisor. Nine-oh is coming up ahead, keep a look out for him. I believe one-one and one-nine have gone ahead into the cave, so don't keep looking for them until you follow in behind them," CC-9650 said into Dunkel's helmet.

"Should I let him know we are still heading to a party?" Dunkel asked the advisor.

"You can remind them later, for now you need to crash it," CC-9650 replied.

"I believe Hope and Citadel are doing that before we even get the chance to arrive," Dunkel said back.

"I wouldn't be surprised. Advisor out," CC-9640 said, and he went silent in Dunkel's ear.

"Time to clean up another after party," Dunkel said to himself.

After a lot droids were turned into bunches of scrap, Dunkel climbed up a small hill as he heard one man shooting ahead. The shots were all fast paced as a normal DC-17m or DC-15a, however it sounded like a DC-17m. It might of had a sniper attachment to it. If that was the case, Dunkel knew who it was.

He stepped up on top of the hill and rolled to a barrier. He looked to his left while leaning against it and there he saw the sharpshooter. It was Doomed.

"Hey oh-three. Just getting the daily routine out of the way... okay I shot the hundredth let's go," Doomed said, not as quick as usual. He warmed up to Dunkel, just like everyone else in the squad had.

"Bullseye wanted me to remind you we have a party to go to," Dunkel had said.

Doomed wore Katarn-class armor like Dunkel. He wore a kama and pauldron, his pauldron being yellow and having a yellow star in the middle of it and his kama being black with yellow lightning bolts on both front sides of the kama. His wrists and bottom of legs were yellow as well as the bottom left side of his helmet. His T-shaped visor was also glowed red, like Dunkel's, and is what stopped the yellow paint on his helmet.

"Thanks for remembering Nar Gutts's birthday! He will be so happy, come this way!" Doomed told Dunkel, and they finished shooting droids and ran down the hill.