Det stepped out onto the ramp and was immediately blinded by Tatooine's twin suns. He was surprised at how warm they made the planet. There was a dry breeze blowing sand into his face, much different than the gales and torrents of rain back home. He walked down the ramp and paused a moment before stepping into the sand. His foot sank down into it slightly, cushioning his step. It was very different from the durasteel halls of Kamino.

"Are you coming, or are you planning on staying there and scrapbooking?" Savage asked.

Det looked up and blinked. "But don't you notice the sand? It's so springy..."

Savage looked out over the vast desert. "I'm just wondering what would happen if I put a thermal detonator under a few feet of sand. What do you think that would do? Or maybe I could see how much explosives it would take to blow up a duracreet truck. Or maybe I could see if I could strap a rocket to a speeder and launch it into those hills."

Stealth stepped between Det and Savage and gripped them both by the shoulder. "Vode? We're on a brand new planet with no intel, armour that protect a Gungan, and enough ammo to make a decent sized crater. Would you mind not standing around with your mouths open? You can blog about it when you get home."

"Yessir," Det said, trying not to pay attention to the sand beneath his feet.

Stealth looked slightly unnerved as he habitually scanned the horizon.

"Something wrong?" Savage asked.

Stealth shrugged. "I'm just wondering why they only sent us out here."

Savage looked confused.

"You know," Stealth said, pinching a bit of brown hair between his fingers, "us."

Savage chuckled. "More of your conspiracy theories?" Savage held his hand up to his chin, imitating Stealth's beard. "I'm Stealth, and I think the Kaminoans are out to get me!" he mocked.

Stealth rolled his eyes. "You're very mature."

"I'm eight. What do you expect?"

The three boys followed their ninety seven brothers out into the desert. Sand kicked up into their faces as the ten LAATs lifted into the air. Stealth turned around and watched them disappear. "Where do you think they're going?"

"Back to the mothership where they can monitor the chip they put in your brain," Savage answered. "They're mind controlling you. They want you to have paranoid delusions."

Det smiled to himself as he watched his brothers argue back and forth.

"I'm not paranoid," Stealth insisted. "Haven't you noticed anything strange about this whole mission? No debrief, no intel, no reason for coming out here. Technically, we shouldn't even be allowed outside Kamino until the war starts."

Det made a shushing sound. "Sir, we're not supposed to--"

Stealth held up a hand. "There's another thing. How do we know there's going to be a war? We've been training for this for our entire lives. You can't predict a war that far into the future. And the simulations? In all of them, we're fighting droids. We're always studying their attack protocols, learning how to best kill them... don't you think they should have us practising against all sorts of enemies? How do they know we'll be fighting droids?"

"Maybe they have wire pyramids they wear on their heads that give them psychic powers," Savage replied.

Det found himself laughing at Savage's comment, but wondered if Stealth was right. Things they'd been taught did seem a little strange if you thought about them. But it was the thinking that got you killed. Det admired Savage for the way he could plan for every possible event, yet in the heat of battle, he acted entirely on instinct. Most times, things didn't go according to plan. Det also admired Stealth for the way he could analyse things. He didn't simply swallow what was fed to him; he questioned everything. He was always aware when someone was lying to him, and rather than calling their bluff, he would use it to his advantage to find out what they were hiding. He would have been a valuable addition to the black ops, if it weren't for the genetic error.

Det jerked his thoughts back to what he was doing. Stealth was throwing a few rude gestures at Savage, who was happily dancing circles around Stealth.

"You're in love with Taun We!" Savage sang. "You think she's beautiful!"

"That's disgusting," Stealth said. "I'd sooner eat her liver with a nice Chianti and some fava--"

Stealth didn't get to finish his thought. Det was suddenly hurled onto his back by the shockwave from a nearby explosion. He sprang to his feet and grabbed his DC-15. He scanned the desert for the enemy, but saw no one except his brothers. Then, appearing on top of a massive sand dune was a lone droid grenadier. Det was frozen by both fear and fascination as the droid launched another thermal detonator from its cylindrical right arm.

"Det!" Stealth shouted. "Open fire!"

Det raised his deece and aimed at the single red eye on the droid's chestplate as he'd done a thousand times in training. He let out his breath and squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened. He stopped to examine the rifle. One of the clones had landed a solid shot, and the droid dropped.

Savage jogged up to Det. "The safety's still on, dinii," he scolded. "Keep your head in what you're doing."

Det winced and reprimanded himself for forgetting something so obvious. He flipped the switch on the deece and was about to apologise when one of the clones shouted out to the others.

"Droids!"

They all looked up at the sand dune where the clone was standing. He was shooting at an unseen enemy that was advancing from behind the dune. With a scream, he took a shot to the head and fell tumbling down the slope. Then the droids appeared. There must have been a hundred and fifty of them coming over the dune. There was a moment where everyone froze, stunned to be seeing their first real enemy. Savage was the first to gather his wits about him, and launched an ECD grenade into the midst of the droids. Then everyone opened fire at the same moment.

Det scrambled to move to a place where he could get a clear shot. The other clones were crowding around into a group to shoot at the incoming droids, but everything was so uncoordinated. They had never been taught to fight in groups of one hundred. Det knew exactly what his role would be on a four man squad, but in a large company of one hundred, he was completely lost. A few of the clones had tried to establish some sort of chain of command, but they all had been shot down the moment they looked away.

A shot rang out from behind Det. He turned to see where it had come from. Part of the company of droids had broken off and was attempting to flank them. Det swung his rifle around and fired a few shots into the midst of the droids.

Stealth suddenly appeared next to Det, taking out a few of the droids.

"How did they know we'd be here?" Det shouted over the din of battle.

"How do you think?" Stealth answered.

Det chose not to entertain that thought at the moment. There was too much going on to ponder why the Kaminoans would send tem out to die. Clones were falling left and right while the droids kept advancing.

Det checked to see if he could find Savage in the fray. He spotted his brother using the sidearm sporadically between lobbing grenades at the droids. He had used up the last of his ECDs and had moved on to thermal detonators. He was trying desperately to keep them at a safe distance from the other clones, but in doing so had lessened the damage he was doing to the droids.

"Det, watch what you're doing!" Stealth barked.

Det fired at another droid, missing the center eye. His bolt just deflected off the droid's outer casing.

Savage rushed back to the rear of the sloppy formation to help Det and Stealth take out the droids that were trying to flank them. He was entirely out of grenades and deece ammo now, and had only his sidearm. He knelt down and carefully aimed at the center eye on a droid, firing three quick rounds and felling it. He took a shot at another droid before his sidearm overheated.

"Savage, fall back!" Stealth ordered.

"No, sir!" Savage yelled back, tossing aside his sidearm and grabbing his custom made vibroblade off his belt. With a loud shout, he rushed straight at the droids.

"Dinii !" Stealth hissed, rushing after him.

The droids seemed to be thinning out now. Most of them were laying in heaps of scrap now. But the ones that remained seemed to be getting the upper hand, and Savage seemed to want to take them all out on his own.

Savage managed to jab his vibroblade in the circuitboard of one droid before a blaster bolt caught him in the leg. Det barely had time to shout his brother's name before another bolt struck Savage at the base of his skull. He slumped forward, motionless.

Det could only watch in horror as Stealth rushed to Savage's side, plowing through any droids that got in his way. A quick glance around showed Det his worst fear. Only about thirty clones remained.

The droids seemed to register that Stealth was a threat. A few of them surrounded him, levelling their blasters at his head, which had no armour at all.

There was an explosion near Det. It threw him off his feet. The plastic armor on his right shoulder had caved in, putting pressure on his right shoulder. Det's ears were ringing from the explosion. He scrambled around, trying to find his blaster. But then his head started to feel light and his vision warped. The ringing in his ears got steadily worse. He tried to get up, but must have tripped over something, because he found himself face first in the sand. He tried to push himself up again, but the bent armour prevented him from doing so. He reached over and ripped the damaged shoulder plate off and tossed it aside. Det felt like he would lose consciousness at any moment. He lifted his head as much as he could.

Stealth was on his knees, surrounded by a large group of droids. There was a smoking hole in his chest armour. With one final act, he thumbed the switch on his last thermal detonator.

The last thing Det saw was a bright explosion, the sound muffled by his ringing ears. Then everything went black.