Captured Separatist supply base

Command office

Seven days after the start of the Farquar Invasion

"You asked for me, sir?" Headshot said as he stepped into the command center of the supply base. It was a large room, with a low ceiling and holotables, showing diagrams, maps, and Seppie battle plans and troop strengths, manned by clones who were engrossed in their work. One of the wall was made of transpari-steel, a window to view the depot outside. When they had captured the base, a full armory of blasters, vibro-blades, tanks, and starfighters had been abandoned by the Seps. They now had the firepower of a fully armed and armored battalion.

Commander Grizzly, who had been watching the troopers in the depot from the window, turned as he heard Headshot enter. "Ah, yes. Headshot, correct?" he asked. Headshot nodded. The commander blinked, then began to speak again. "I have an assignment for you. You received your nickname because of your sharpshooting skills, I assume. Now, I have a good use for them."

Headshot's eyebrow raised. "And this assignment is, sir?" he asked.

"I need a sniper."

"Why, sir?"

"Because," Grizzly said, scowling. "Intel from Kenobi says that a Farquaran militia strike force is en route to here, to retake this fort," he explained. "And an important general is overseeing things. Hednaal Periun. He's one of their strategists, and responsible for the battle plans we're analyzing now."

Headshot frowned. "And you're asking me..."

"To take him out."

"Assassination, sir? Couldn't they call in some commando team for that?"

"Zey has more important things to do than give his men for this. And I need it done fast. They're due here in seventy-two hours."

That was a sobering thought. They had had no attacks in the recent days they had inhabited the base, not even small insurgent attacks.

"How large is the militia force, commander?" Headshot inquired. If he was going to kill someone, he wanted to know how big of a force this guy was commanding. "About a whole regiment. The Seps aren't taking chances here. They want to take this base as quickly as they can. You can stop that if you succeed."

You.

Grizzly was basically telling him the fate of the Republic's foothold on Farquar rested on his shoulders now, not his or any of Hunter Company. And also if he wanted Gutter's, Wiyo's and every other clone who had died here's deaths to mean something, that he would have to complete the mission.

Now, he could see the burden that Grizzly carried. The destiny of everyone's lives and fates.