The nights were always cold on Anaxes. The clones made do, even if you had night patrol and overwatch. Overwatch is when two clones would stay in a watchtower and watch over a certain sector of the base with a sniper rifle. The one not handling the sniper would have the binoculars and his comlink ready. Right now, those two clones are Troy and Ross. Troy is a sniper for the 87th Sentinel Corps. He's not seen any action since he's been on Anaxes and this is his first duty station. He's what some clones would call a "shiny".
Ross is a different story. He's seen battle all across the galaxy with the 212th attack battalion. He's been all sorts of planets, and this is his latest stop. He's only here until General Kenobi has decided to go somewhere else. He's been on so many missions and so many of his brothers killed in this war. He's an airborne trooper and he usually drops from the gunships onto enemy forces. Tonight though, he's been stationed with a rookie sniper for some form of punishment his platoon leader thought his last report wasn't "thorough" enough.
Usually, overwatch would happen with the same battalion at least, if not the same company or platoon. But since Ross needed some disciplinary action, the higher-ups made an exception. Tonight was the first night that Troy was actually on duty since he was deployed here.
On the southern side of the base, these two have been just bored. Bored. Not just doing nothing. Straight up bored. And almost nothing was moving out in the night. Except for maybe some small animals. Troy is lying prone with the rifle's scope to his visor, while Ross is kneeling on one knee with the 'nocs up to his visor. Both bored out of their minds. Ross just lowers his arm and puts his hand up to his head and sighs. 'This is outrageous, why couldn't the lieutenant just berate me and just give me some PT.' Ross thinks.
"Something on your mind?" 'Oh great, now the rookie wants to talk, could my night get any worse?' "No, just need to get some shut-eye" Ross replies. "Well, don't worry, here in about 2 hours we'll go back to the barracks." Troy says, kind of with an optimistic tone. "So Sergeant, why are you here?" Ross had never thought the rookie would have the brass to ask that question. "First off, you can just call me Ross. Secondly, I'm here because my platoon leader decided it would be a 'fitting punishment'."
Troy looked back for a second, then put his visor back to the scope. "Punishment for what?" Ross had to stop himself from sighing, this was getting annoying. "The report I filed for the battle I was in a couple days ago. Apparently, it wasn't "thorough" enough for his liking. Now, I'm stuck doing overwatch for the next couple of days, if not weeks."
After about 30 minutes, Troy hears the crackling of paper right behind him. He looks and saw Ross struggling with his ration pack. The rations weren't great, but they kept the clones from going insane during times when you can't go to the mess hall. Ross, almost giving up, takes the knife from his lower shin-guard and cuts it open. Someone can almost tell the Troy is befuddled by this. "Why do you have a knife? The droids aren't gonna attack you with their hands." Ross audibly sighs, and let's his head down. "It's just something I made when I was on another post. You get bored when all you do is sit and wait for your next mission." Ross says this as he puts the knife back in its sheath.
It was about five minutes later when Troy asked: "What's it made out of ?" "What?" Half-asleep, Ross gets a bit confused. "The knife, what's it made out of?" Troy says again, getting a bit annoyed at Ross for not being as alert as him. "Oh, uh, it's part of a Commando Droid's Vibro-sword. It broke in half when it tried to kill me. So, once the thing was dead, I grabbed the half that broke off. I eventually made it into a knife, it took so long to make, but it was worth it." Ross pulls the knife back out, looks at it, and smiles underneath his helmet.
Troy was confused though. He couldn't understand why he made the knife. "Why would you make it though? Isn't that contraband? What if you get caught with it? I mean, it doesn't look like a knife The Republic would issue." Ross, looking befuddled under his helmet, considered the same thing. Why did he do it? Because he wanted to? Because he wanted revenge on the droids? He honestly didn't know. He couldn't really say. He had no answer for the rookie.
Luckily, he didn't need to. His and the rookie's comms went off. Troy, always answering the instant his comms goes off, gets to it first. "Troy, Ross, what's the status?" Ross, being the highest-ranking decided to answer first. "Nothing out here sir, just some of the local wildlife." "Well, we've got a mission for-" "Well finally sir, it's about time you-" "For the BOTH of you!" Ross seemed very shocked at this. From his knowledge, Troy had never been on any missions. Hell, this was his very first post. Troy responded back, "We'll be right down sir." "Hurry up!"
The whole base only has about 1,000 troops, including the pilots and drivers, this was just a small Foward Operating Base (FOB). It's not super big but can house a couple of AT-TEs, and about five LAATs. As the two clones were getting off of their watchtower and heading towards the control center, Troy was very curious about his first mission. 'Why would they pick me? Are they certain about this? My scores in training weren't even the best at this outpost?' The two of them walked in silence as they approached the door into the control center. The Sentry outside snapped to attention. "Password?" "'The path to Light is through the darkness.'" The clones would usually have to say a phrase to get into these types of rooms.
The 2 entered, and Troy was struck with awe. Sure, it wasn't much, but just being a shiny and entering a room filled with people who control the thousands of clones throughout the planet. He started to look around in amazement until his name was called over to the command table. On the table was the local map, well 25km around the base they were sectioned in. The entire map was on a hexagon and was on a hologram table. Troy and Ross gathered around the table and saluted the Commanding Officer of the base. "At ease." Troy and Ross went to parade rest. "Well, I bet you're wondering why I called you down here."
That's exactly what they were wondering. Why would they need someone from 2 different battalions doing a mission together? Not to mention they both thought they were the worst choice. In any situation. "Look, this is a 2 man mission. You'll be doing this alone, there's no possible way to give you back-up, the entire base is going to on the front lines. You two are going in a separate gunship with just you 2, behind enemy lines. We've done scouting in that area and we've secretly set up a camouflaged watchtower. Troy, you have the best sniping scores out of this entire base." This shocked Troy, he had never seen his scores and those decided what missions he would be put on. If his scores were that good he could go on the best missions. And the most dangerous.
"Ross here is the best close combat clone we have here, so he will be your back up. So, the two of you will be camping out in that watchtower 'till we can get you out. You will be killing a very high-value target that's coming in right before we can start the invasion. This target has information about The Republic. He needs to be killed." The two looked confused. They didn't know they were going to be killing an actual living target. "This is the target." The picture he pulls up on the table widens the eyes of the two clones. It was another clone. Their brother.