Chapter Three
Day Fifty-Two: Aboard the Nova
In the Coronet sector, a massive warship was cruising the space lanes, twice as large as the three Venator-class ships traveling with it. The ship was one-of-a-kind, and built exactly like the Venators next to it. The difference was purely size. Every aspect on the ship was double that of what was supposed to be the Republic's largest warship; hull size, crew, troop strength, firepower. The ship was known as the Nova, and it was the flagship of Admiral Mark Thowel, commander of the Republic's legendary Fifth Fleet. However, the ship had one more unique factor. The ship was home to ten different commando squads, rather than one. One of those squads was Fallout Squad.
Fallout Squad had been living aboard the Nova since the start of the war, deploying to operations from it, and returning to it when finished. Today, the squad was in the ship's personal holosimulation chamber, which was smaller than the one on Kamino, but not by much. They were running the most difficult simulation programmed in the system, the other nine commando squads watching. The most noticeable of these nine was Shadow Team, a commando squad that had the unusual job of being Thowel's personal guard. The squads were taking turns running the simulation, seeing who could last the longest without first making a fault, and then finally being brought down.
Wraith's squad had been running the simulation for an hour, and was already breathing hard. The simulation was far more difficult than the one on Kamino, which had earned Fallout Squad some fame before the war had even truly started. Now they were practically racing the clock, doing everything they could to maintain the image of being a "perfect" unit. They had already passed all of the squads except two, Shadow Team and Atom Squad. Now, they were facing two DSD1 units, along with a hit squad of trandoshan mercenaries.
As his team dealt with the threat, Wraith was multitasking, thinking about their last operation, the one that had caused the unit to rename themselves to Fallout Squad. The other squads had been thinking about the same mission as they ran the simulation, wondering what it would have been like had Wraith's team never returned.
The squad had been sent to a remote planet that didn't yet have a name, largely because it was uninhabited. However, there had been radio traffic coming from the planet, and upon investigation, a droid weapons factory was revealed. Partially due to their success on their first operation, Wraith and his men were sent to deal with it. The operation went off without a hitch, until the very end. The foreman of the factory, a Geonosian warlord, had built a fail-safe of sorts into the factory, a radioactive bomb that was built to destroy both the factory and the planet. The weapon was detonated, and the only thing that kept the commandos alive was their armor, and a special bubble-like shield that Data had made. The wave of radiation broke up communication signals, preventing the squad from calling for help, and jamming any signals coming in from their advisor. So, floating in space with suits sealed and the shield up, the squad floated in a highly radioactive zone until the Nova finally showed up to investigate, not wanting to send a single squad for risk of losing another.
It was this mission that was playing through Wraith's head as his team worked, and the rage fueled by it was what allowed him to keep his squad in a state of perfection. The squad had already dealt with the trandoshans and switched their focus to the two DSD1 units, two commandos engaging each one. The squad eliminated the two droids quickly, and abruptly, the simulation shut off. The squad looked around in confusion, and then stood up, looking up at the clock. They had just barely passed Shadow Team's time, who had kept the highest during every other squad's run. Major Stone, the leader of Shadow Team, was standing at the console, having shut off the simulation. He was slowly shaking his head in disbelief, yet grinning down at the squad.
"Now I see what Delta Squad meant when they said that you run a perfect squad Major. I'm impressed," Stone praised.
"Thank you. I've tried my best to keep them in top shape," Wraith responded, taking his helmet off.
The rest of Fallout Squad was taking their helmets off, sweat gleaming on their faces. Perfection was a nice goal, but a taxing one, for obvious reasons. Before anyone else could speak, the ship's intercom system turned on.
"Major Wraith, Major Stone, report to the command deck at once. Priority One details are to be given."
The two majors glanced at each other, and then jogged out of the simulation chamber, heading towards a turbolift. Entering the lift, Stone hit a button, and they shot up through the massive vessel, towards the command deck. Located five levels below the bridge, the command deck was practically a sealed bunker inside of a bigger bunker. The deck had no viewports, only blastdoors, and required a Level Four security clearance to enter, unless otherwise said.
When the doors opened, the two men stepped out and moved towards the small blastdoor at the end of the hallway. Pushing a button, they waited several seconds while the man on the other side of the door looked to see who it is and opened it. The two commandos walked through the door, which closed the second they were through it. Moving forward they went through another door into the command center, where they saw several of the ship's officers, including the admiral himself.
"Ah, good, you two made good time," Thowel said as he saw them, a small smile coming to his face, "Now we can get this out of the way."
"What's the problem sir?" Stone asked, his helmet under his arm.
"We've found the source of the communications traffic that our base on Corellia picked up. There appears to be some sort of military setup on one of the asteroids near Corellia. We know for a fact they are Separatist transmissions."
Wraith exchanged a look with Stone and said, "Let me guess sir, our teams are going to take it down?"
"Close," Thowel said, "Shadow Team is going first to scout the operation, see how large it is. When they have that done, they are going to send a transmission to us, and your team will be sent with them. After your last operation, I'm not quite ready to send only one team. Understood? Good. Go get your men ready."
The two majors nodded and began to walk out of the command center, heading back towards the lift. Going through the two doors and entering the lift, Wraith hit the button to go back down. The two commandos were silent, both mentally preparing themselves for the mission. Both were famous in their own ways for how they led their teams and both had nothing but respect for the other. But they also both knew that operations could get tricky when you involved more than one squad.
Exiting the lift once it had stopped, they walked back to the simulation chamber, where they found the other squads talking and laughing among each other. Each major waved their respective squad over to them, and told them their orders. The two squads left the room, and being noticed by the other eight, killed the mood in the room. Everyone remembered the last mission, and they all worried about the two squads, both of which were highly liked.
The two squads went to their respective LAAT gunships and geared up. At this point in the war, most squads had customized armor. Shadow Team wore Night Ops armor that had dark red visors, and a few dark red markings among the armor. Fallout Squad had painted their armor dark grey with a yellow secondary, and radiation green visors. Getting out of their training gear, they put their combat armor on and grabbed their weapons. Fallout Squad then went over to Shadow Team and exchanged their well-wishes. As Shadow Team boarded, Stone turned and grasped Wraith's hand, shaking it.
His last words before letting the doors close were, "If we fall, make sure the galaxy sees this place go up."
Then the doors closed, and to the men on the Nova, the next step to breaking the Separatist's back began.
