Three- POV: Elara Dorne, Companion to the Trooper. Elara had begun to wonder if Havoc Squad was really where she belonged, as she was certain that her commander was mad...

Setting: Immediately after the Trooper completes Taris' class story and moves onto the Bonus Series. No real spoilers except for the fact that Elara is a companion.

Mad- Elara Dorne

The blaster bolt whizzed over her head, and Elara sank herself deeper into the mud, staining her golden hair and marring her pale skin. Modesty had been left a long time ago, somewhere rather between stepping into raider territory and being shot at; the exact location was a bit of a bothersome detail she didn't quite feel like dwelling on.

To summarize, she was squashing herself into the mud and hoping to the Force that something would happen to give her a break in the constant firing. "Bloody pirates," she growled to herself, and gripped her blaster pistol tighter, edging her head out from behind the sandbags and cursing in Huttese when a sizzling shot burned the spot where her eye had almost been.

Across from her, Jorgan was in no better shape, having been shot in the shoulder already and gritting his sharp teeth as he bore the pain. Still, he had tilted his cannon over the rock that served as his barricade and was firing steadily back into the squadron of pirates.

Elara wondered how they had ever managed to get into this mess; Taris' pirates gangs were hardly organized, and the nine they were facing now were no different. Her trained mind took one second to come up with the answer.

"Bloody Leftenant!" she snarled, and fired blindly over her cover. "Sergeant!" she called to Jorgan. "Where is he?"

The Cathar made a sound that was a cross between a roar and grunt of irritation, something odd and alien to Elara's ears. "Don't ask me!" he snapped, and hurled a spare grenade over his rock; it landed to the side of the pirates and exploded, spraying shrapnel over the place and doing, in essence, nothing to help their position. Not that Elara could blame him, with his wounded shoulder and all.

Their esteemed commander's plan had been to whistle to the pirates as they approached, then disappear into the shrubs and trees almost immediately, leaving his sergeants to weather the assault that was soon brought to bear on them. Elara hadn't had time to express her dissatisfaction with the idea, and instead had been forced into cover almost immediately; the pirates were entrenched, on higher ground and have ten guns where they had two.

For the third time that day (or was it the fourth?) she wondered how command of Havoc squad had fallen to such a...

A portion of her sandbag exploded from where a particularly hot blaster bolt burned through it and she flinched; her light armor wouldn't protect her well from a direct shot, not if their guns had made short work of Jorgan's-

Something leapt from the tree above, a heavy shape that thudded into existence behind the pirates. A few turned, but by that time Elara had already stuck her head out and watched Havoc Squad's commander bash his rifle into the skull of one and punch a sharp gauntlet blade into the throat of another.

She narrowed her eyes, but set aside her anger and fired into the spine of another pirate, her aim precise and perfect as ever.

Their commander ducked a retaliatory swipe, then grabbed the man who had swung for him and held him as a human shield; said shield dutifully soaked up a blaster shot, and then their commander fired his own rifle (one-handed, the show off) into the pirate who had fired in the first place. It was almost dreadfully confusing, had Elara not been versed in the art of warfare and been forced to concede that their commander was, in fact, not bad at his job.

She mentally summarized that five pirates were dead. The other four were taken down from a sweep of Jorgan's cannon, a few shots of which skipped the ground near their commander's foot; he yelped and Elara could hear his narrowed eyes beneath his helmet. "What was that for?" he demanded.

For his part, Jorgan calmly rolled his wounded shoulder, checked the power cell on his cannon, and shrugged. "I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about, sir."

"We got them all, didn't we?"

"Of course, sir."

Leftenant Ellyon tilted his head just so. "You're mad at me."

"Of course not. That would be unprofessional," Jorgan countered in complete deadpan.

Elara had no such reservations. "I... Why I... I've never seen such brash and wasteful tactics in my career!" she spouted hotly, staring down her commander. She had shouted at Imperial officers and a Sith, once (though that was another story), and one hotshot wouldn't intimidate her into silence. "Sir, I really must protest against such actions-"

Leftenant Ellyon held up an armored hand, and removed his helmet, revealing his tanned face, dark, regulation-cut hair, and the pair of optical covers that served to shield his eyes from the world. The miraluka smirked, an infuriating expression that Elara already knew would be the end of her.

"Now, now, Sergeant," he chastised. "Remember that official complaints can be filled out via the right form."

Now he was mocking her. Her glare intensified. "They can," she allowed. "But-"

"And right now we're wasting daylight," he acknowledged, and reset his helmet, still smirking, the cocky bastard. "No time to waste." He cocked his head playfully again. "And what is time, Jorgan?"

The Cathar sighed heavily, putting his free hand to his temple. "Time is money," he muttered.

Elara's eyes boggled. "WHAT?!" But Ellyon was already walking ahead through the brush, chopping through it like he was some cowboy explorer on a special mission, when in fact only one of those three qualifiers was true. She turned to Jorgan. "Please tell me that I misheard you."

Jorgan shook his head rather miserably. "Time is money," he repeated. "It's his motto, or something. Made me repeat it on Coruscant. Now I'm stuck with it. Ugh." Nursing his shoulder, he trudged off after their commander.

And Elara stared, suddenly wondering if she'd have been better off back at the SAR command post instead of in Havoc Squad.