Chapter 5:

-Lightning strikes reflected off of RC-2789's visor, though commonly known as Ignate to his fellow soldiers. The rain poured down onto the gunship that they rode in. Hammering the metal, and echoing it down into where they stood now. Ignate held onto the handle above him as the ship swayed back and forth from the strong, turbulent winds. To his right, Garth mimicked Ignate, holding onto the handle as well. Behind Garth, Nuel leaned into the small corridor that connected to the cockpit.

The storm had come abruptly, and with it, black clouds lingered and covered the sun. Ironically, it worked to almost help the commandos. Though, growing up on Kamino, rain was nothing knew to the highly trained soldiers.

Ignate closed his eyes for a brief moment, and was able to reminisce of their first mission as a newly appointed Theta Squad:

'Get to your ships!' The loadmaster yelled, as the Republic assault ship shook from oncoming planetary flak.

Ignate stepped up to an unknown gunship with the rest of the soldiers, the Battle of Ryloth. They were just shinies back then, fresh out of training.

A hand found its way onto Ignate's shoulder, he turned to see Jerik. He smiled under his helmet.

'You ready, brother?' Jerik asked anxiously.

'As ready as ever,' Ignate joked. Truth be told, he was scared as hell, but he didn't want any of his brothers to sense fear in him, especially because he was a commando. All feelings of doubt and hesitation were pushed aside when the door closed to their gunship. He knew that his two other brothers, Nuel, and Helios would be in a different gunship, and they would rendezvous on Ryloth's surface. From there they were to find where the separatist leaders were gathering. Their goal was to eliminate some of them.

Once their gunship had landed, it was a slaughter, Separatist automatic laser emplacements cut down their brothers. Many bodies lay around Ignate and Jerik. He knew that just beyond those turrets was the rendezvous point. His eyes gazed up to the large plateau above their enemies. Ignate watched as Jerik began to move towards the enemy, pushing forward in the shadows, and he followed, taking Jerik's flank. Two commando droids lept from the turret emplacements, and Ignate did not hesitate, he shot the first one in the head. Sparks surged from its mechanical head, and soon the lights that illuminated from the "eyes" soon faded. The droid collapsed into a pile of dead circuitry.

Contrary to Ignate's lightning Commando reflexes, he was unable to shoot the second one before it engaged him with the vibrosword holstered to its back. He stepped back to dodge a downward slash, but the droid was programmed better than his sloppy move, and on the rebound it struck him upside the head, shortly stunning him.

Before the droid could swing again, a blaster shot hit its torso. It recoiled before a second shot pierced its metallic skull, destroying the machine.

'Thanks,' Ignate turned to see Jerik trotting towards him.

'Brothers stick together,' Jerik said, he extended a hand to Ignate.

Soon they began to scale the wall with their cables, parallel to the remaining emplacements.

Ignate felt the hot air from the lasers, and explosions of the battlefield, still seemingly fresh behind him. Jerik and he scaled a large rock formation to their meeting point. As they neared the top, they saw a white silhouette in the distance. Upon closer inspection, a familiar purple marking identified the trooper to be Nuel.

'Where's Helios?' Jerik had asked. His armor was tainted an almost rust shade from the sand, and dirt of the barren world.

'He didn't make it, sir, we were ambushed at our position, super battle droids.'

'Damn.' Jerik looked over to Ignate, 'looks like it's just us three, let's get this over with.'

Ignate paused to think on that name...Helios...the quietest of the original Theta Squad, the reissued Theta Squad. He didn't know Helios very well, and usually Helios kept to himself.

Should've been an ARC, he thought to himself.

It was unfortunate that Helios was lost before he could participate on more missions, and his loss had still hurt them all. Afterall, they had known each other since they were practically out of the incubation pods. Though, eventually Garth replaced Helios, and had become a new little brother to the Commandos of Theta Squad. Ignate for a moment remembered when their trainer had told them of their new brother after their return to Kamino.

What am I doing? I don't have time for this.

Ignate reminded himself of their current task. He tensed and opened his eyes to the shaking of their gunship which now was extremely close to the landing site.To his front and side, Nuel and Garth checked their ordinance and power cells in silence. Ignate checked his as well, he saw that his power cells were full, and magni-locked the blaster back to his thigh.

The gunship came to a halt, and the pilot radioed back to the commandos.

'We're at the landing site, from here you'll be on your own. Good luck down there.'

The commandos locked their ascension cables to the end of the gunship, and roped down into the shrubbery and mud below.

Ignate landed, and his photoreceptors took a few nanoseconds before adjusting to the conditions. He noted that they were almost dead in the middle of a large jungle-forest. All around them, dense bushes and trees covered their positions. In the far, far distance, light pollution from Sekkra could be seen in the night sky. Ignate outstretched his arm, signaling the commandos to proceed. The gunship above them flew into the storm, away from them. They quickly made haste to their destination, Ignate knew that they needed to reach their destination before their cover was lost. Whatever wildlife was there, left them alone, or was too afraid of the storm to leave their burrows and homes. The rain beat down on their armor, and visors, but was quickly wiped away by the wind. Twigs and branches that had fallen from the high winds, crunched under the Commandos feet. They moved in silence, like machines, and in a way they were machines.

This reminded Ignate of the mission from which Jerik had died, but he pushed the thought from his mind. They didn't have time for distractions, especially with a mission such as this. One error could end up killing them all.

The forest began to open up into a cut off, almost a cliff, but still not steep enough. At the end of the tree line and beginning of the drop off, was Sekkra's outskirts. Ignate scouted a couple bushes and a tree abnormally taller than the rest there. He didn't need to say anything, Nuel and Garth knew what to do, and they quickly took their positions. Ignate found a bush that rested next to the base of the large tree, while Nuel began to shimmy up the trunk. Behind Ignate, Garth covered the rear, protecting them from an ambush, but soon, he too crouched down a few feet from Ignate.

Ignate watched as Nuel reached the scouting point, and waited a few minutes to let Nuel's hawk eyes scour the city for possible enemies.

'You know, I never thought I'd ever say this but...it actually looks clear.' Nuel said over the comlink.

Garth looked to Ignate.

'Probably because they're held up in the outpost.'

Ignate shook his head, something was not right, they'd at least have some sort of sentries, or guards to alert them of incoming hostiles.

'Here, let me see.' Ignate grabbed his own pair of electrobinoculars, and peered into them.

He looked around and to his surprise, Nuel was right, there didn't appear to be any sentries. He continued his scan, but stopped at a red light. The right light flashed off the top of a broken six story building, one that was not afraid to show its age. Ignate zoomed in, and froze. He quickly reached up to the comlink.

'Nuel, point zero-five-zero, six o'clock.'

'Ahh, sneaky little bastards aren't they?' Nuel replied.

'What is it?' Garth questioned.

Ignate holstered the electrobinoculars, and turned to Garth.

'Snipers.'

-From the top of the six story building, Zalia could see it all. She secretly loved her job, but acted as though it was just another task. The Republic was despised by the rebels. Their corrupt politicians and self centered politics favored the wealthy and let the less fortunate suffer. She scowled at even the thought of the Republic. Why did she have to be born at such a place? A world in which the devotion for the Republic was ceaseless, and their eagerness to serve was unending. That's why at the first stench of rebellion, she acted on it. No longer would she idly stand by while people like her and her family would waste away in the shipyards and factories, slaving to build ships for the Republic.

Zalia sighed, and continued her routine surveillance. She adjusted the scope of the DC-15x sniper rifle. After taking the Republic outpost, they had been able to scavenge a decent amount of weapons, and ammunition from the armory. That which was left behind, anyway. This hadn't been the first time that Zalia had used a sniper rifle, though hers was a much watered down civilian variant. In the few times that her father had not been working, he used to take her hunting. Though even that alone was not enough experience for her to be that great of a shot, but she had been given a sniper because aside from her surveillance partner, she had the most sniper experience.

The scope had many settings, and she was able to switch between them at a moment's notice. She noticed some shuffling, about a quarter click to the south of her. Zalia zoomed in, but couldn't tell what it was. That was when she decided to switch between settings, the storm and darkness had clouded the visibility. She clicked through them until she reached the infrared setting, if there was something out there living, she'd notice its heat signature. Sure enough she got a brief second of a read before it was gone.

It's probably just an animal of some sort that wandered too close to the city, she thought to herself. She continued to slowly pace back and forth, attempting to see through the remaining last bit of the rain, and wind. To her surprise, the heat signature was back, but this time it stayed. She radioed her partner, Guiro.

'Copy that,' Guiro responded to her call.

'Do you see that heat signature?' She asked him.

'No, why?'

She could hear a hint of an accent from him, afterall he was a Twi'lek.

'South, point two-five clicks,' she said hoping he could eye it from his position further west.

'I don't..wait..yeah. I'm not sure what it is, there's too much interference.'

'If it doesn't go away soon, I'm gonna radio the boss.' Zalia finished.

'Sure,' Guiro approved.

The connection was cut, and Zalia was alone again, she zoomed closer in to the heat signature.

'What are you-' she began to mutter before a sharp pain collided with her temple. The laser bolt quickly passed through her skull, and into her brain, where it vaporized what was there, leaving a small two centimeter hole above her closed left eye, ending all of Zalia's thoughts.