Max toweled off his hair as he stepped out of the shower. Bathing was always a welcomed activity on Felucia. He finished drying off and threw on a fresh pair of shorts before heading out into the barracks with the rest of his guys. He looked around at his men lazing around the barracks. Max tried to get his men as much R&R time as possible these days. He couldn't expect his men to operate at maximum efficiency without having opportunity to unwind, especially in the harsh conditions of this planet.
He took note of some of the more recent arrivals, recent being within the last year. He looked over and saw the Gamma unit lead cryptanalysts/slicer tinkering with the terminal near the door.
"Hype, I thought I told you to stay away from that terminal."
The clone retracted from the terminal as though bitten and snapped to, "Sorry, sir."
Over the last year of the war, the Republic found it necessary to seize enemy information where ever they could. The excellent intelligence findings resulted in more and more units winding up with soldiers trained as slicers for infiltration into enemy computer systems. Gamma unit's best slicer was CT-03/206. He was the best slicer Max had ever seen, and he had seen a few slicers in his day. 06 could run circles around any computer security measures the Seps had. His skill came with a price, however. 06 suffered a DNA aberration during his birthing process. This mild mutation in his genetic code was not enough for him to be rejected and could be put to good use. The aberration gifted 06 with a dizzying intellect and light speed mental processing ability. This increased mental CPU power came at the cost of RAM, though. As dizzying as his intellect was, 06's lack of attention span was equally dizzying. Max had seen 06 pick up and drop up to four different tasks within the course of an hour, never returning to the first one unless reminded to do so. This "hyperactivity disorder", as the cloners called it, had given the slicer his nickname, Hype. The only thing Max didn't like about his best slicer was that, when not in action, Hype quite often found himself bored, and often sought to amuse himself by slicing into areas of the compound where he doesn't belong. If left unattended, Hype's attention span could get him into a bit of trouble.
Max looked over to one of the bunks and found his chief medic, Splint. He was laying on his bunk, staring intently at a data pad, running a stylus through his fingers. He was no doubt studying yet another medical journal. When they were first fielded back on Geonosis, the only medics the clones had any contact with were droids that stayed in the transports. Since then, the Republic apparently reconsidered the expendability of its troops and started detaching the medics from their adjacent transports. The droid medics turned out to be a disaster in combat situations, which set the Republic to plan "B". They started training clones in medical fields for the purpose of helping keep the troopers alive in combat situations. As a result, Gamma unit's KIAs dropped to nothing, that is before they were deployed to Felucia. CT-02/597 was the head of the four medics assigned to the Gammas. Splint was a Geonosis veteran of Gamma unit and always kept very much to himself. After his retraining, he devoted much of his free time to studying various medical journals to keep up on the latest combat medical procedures. He said it was his way of unwinding. Max just shook his head. He didn't know how anybody could keep their head in a book that long without losing all traces of sanity, and had long ago resigned himself to never finding out.
Max threw his towel over his shoulder and made his way to his bunk. He liked the fact that his men were enjoying themselves, which brought a smile to his face. The war having gone far longer than the Republic had intended had some negative effects on the moral of the armed forces. That is one area where the Seps had an advantage over the clones. A droid couldn't start to get depressed if the conflict went long. The Republic had expected the war to dwindle down to mop up within a year of Geonosis. Little did they know that the Seps had been preparing their forces for a long time and had considerable armies built up by then. Fortunately, Most of the war had reduced to a few major conflicts on and around the inner worlds and a series of sieges in the Outer Rim areas.
The biggest factor that was prolonging the war was finding General Grievous, high commander of the droid armies. He was slipperier than a Dagobah tree slug on a rainy day. Whenever the Republic thought they had pinpointed him, they sent in a fleet big enough to stomp any resistance only to find they had massively outgunned a much smaller fleet with Grievous nowhere to be seen. On the flip side of that credit, he would always turn up wherever the Republic hadn't sent enough manpower to catch him, and he'd escape. It was a perplexing pursuit at best, but he was running out of places to hide.
Max sat down on his bunk and looked at the duty roster for the week. The Gammas weren't slated to be up for anything for two days. The rest of the week was jammed, but they would enjoy the two days they would get.
Deuce hung his head down from the bunk above, "I already checked it, sir, and I like what I see."
Max nodded, "Me, too. In fact, I'm thinking of slipping into the officer's mess tonight and getting something to have some fun with."
Deuce's eyebrow's lowered, "You're not thinking of stealing some of the commander's food again, are you?"
Max smiled, "Entertaining the thought." He yawned, "Right now, though, I'd rather just get some rest. You got the deck. Wake me up if the planet explodes."
Deuce nodded, "You'll be the first to know."
Max threw his feet up on his bunk and laid his head back. He was asleep before he even hit the pillow. He woke up at his usual rouse time ten hours later and was feeling all the better for it. He rolled out of bed and went to the showers. After cleaning up, Max threw on an orange duty jump suit and went about his business of making sure his men were enjoying their time off. He went to a table to find four of his Gammas starting up a game of saabac. 89 dealt out the cards and everyone looked at their hand. The deck shifted and everything got interesting. 48 folded right off the rip, and with good reason, the hand he had. 60 and 25 both hit for another card. This was going to get fun.
Just as the game was getting interesting, Max heard his number called out from the door. He turned to see Commander Bly standing there. Max never liked being summoned by his superiors unless he knew it was for a good reason. He left the saabac table and stood before the commander.
Bly handed him a data disk, "Transfer orders. You need to be ready to go in four hours." Without another word, the commander turned and left the barracks.
Deuce and Ears came up behind him, "What's that, Max?"
Without response, Max popped the disk into the terminal and activated the play back. The briefing was just that, brief. It gave a quick history about an unsuccessful attack on Coruscant and a failed attempt to kidnap the Chancellor. It also stated that Count Dooku, another influential leader in the Sep forces, had been killed. The mission briefing stated that General Obi-wan Kenobi had discovered where Gen. Grievous was hiding and was amassing an army to take the planet. He specifically requested that the best of the 212th be there, and command could think of none better than Gamma unit. The Gammas were to get into the shuttle bound for Coruscant and rendezvous with the Jedi there.
Max looked up from the monitor and stared at the wall. This was both a blessing and a curse. It meant that the Gammas were finally being pulled out of this mud hole, but it also meant they were going to see some pretty hot action in the days to come. He turned around to face his men.
"Gammas, listen up!" He gave them a moment to quiet down. Every head in the barracks turned toward him and silently waited for what he had to say. Once everyone was quiet, Max broke the news.
"I'm sorry to say that our break time has been cut short. On the bright side, its because we're rotating out of here." The whole of Gamma unit erupted into celebration. Any clone birthed from a pod was glad to put his back to this planet, but Max hadn't finished what he was saying.
"Hold on! Hold on!…" Everyone stopped celebrating and looked at their lieutenant quizzically.
"We're being transferred out because we've been called upon by Gen. Obi-wan Kenobi for a very important mission. He's found Grievous, and we're gonna help him get him."
The entire barracks was silent as a tomb. Grievous was the biggest target remaining in the Separatist command structure. He goes down, so does the rest. Grievous was a brilliant tactician and brave warrior, but he was also personally defending the entire Separatist Council. That meant that he probably had several armies of battle droids surrounding him. Everyone had right to be a little apprehensive.
Max finished up, "Everyone kill what you're doing and be ready to lift from this rock in three hours. Anyone not ready in that time pulls double shift." The clones' goods consisted of two duty uniforms, their armor, weapons, specialty-related devices, and a few personal knickknacks here and there. With that small of a packing list, anyone not ready to go in one hour was blatantly disregarding orders and deserved what he got.
Max went to his bunk to start gathering his things, but was sidetracked when he saw his charm of memory on the head board. In recent months at the behest of the Jedi Generals, the clones were allowed to have a few personal possessions. He sat down on the bunk and pushed the button on top to start the playback. The charm's holoprojector storage had stills in it from their training days and the beginning of the war up to the present. His charm of moment had been a very busy little device in their off hours. Max paused the playback on a still with him and Zalma Far back on Kamino. Max was just a boy then, so to speak. He looked at the image of the teacher and friend he had back on his birth world and silently wondered if he would ever see him again. The playback continued parading through his life and the history of Gamma unit. Images from Kamino, Geonosis, the Prosecutor, Eriadu, Tatooine, Mygeeto, and most recently Felucia. Max paused the playback again on a still that had him, Snipes, Deuce, and Sensors all clustered together, smiling like there was nothing on their minds other than having fun, like there was no war. Max's jaw clenched. Not a day went by that he didn't miss his old pod brother, Sensors. Sensor's death two years ago served as a spur for Max: the sooner he could help end this war, the sooner he can stop watching his fellow soldiers and friends die. The playback continued, flooding more and more memories to Max's mind, before it cycled around to the beginning. Max look at his chrono. The last thirty five minutes had up and gone without so much as a whisper.
Deuce hung his head over his bunk and looked at his superior for a long moment. He finally broke the silence, "You alright, sir?"
Max took one long last wistful look at a still with Zalma in it, then turned the charm off and answered his XO, "Fine. Just got a little nostalgic for a bit there. You all packed up?"
"Getting there. Just wanted to make sure you were going to start packing. Force forbid the man who issued the order not follow it."
Max nodded, "Suppose you're right. Finish packing and make sure everyone else is, too. I want to be ready before the shuttle is."
"As ordered." Deuce saluted Max and swung his head back up on his bunk.