The first settlement RT3 was assigned to visit first was Coda Village. At first, the people of the village ran away and shut their doors at the sight of them before Fick mentioned to Fordo that they should remove their helmets so the people know they're human. Once they did remove their helmets and shouted out a loose translation that they didn't mean the village any harm, they were approached by who they assumed to be the leader of the village. Fordo flipped through a datapad he had been given to communicate with the locals.

The old man answered first, "Welcome to our village, strangers. What do you want with us?"

Fordo continued with his rough translation, "We like know you better. What kind this place?"

"We're a simple town. We keep to ourselves. The Empire comes around a few times in the year to collect taxes."

"About Empire, they abuse you?"

"Abuse us? No, not really. Sometimes if the taxes are short they might get angry but they leave us to ourselves. Tell us though, where do you come from? What is that armor you're wearing and why do you look the same? And what is that machine you're holding?"

"We from Republic. We are clone soldiers and we fight the Empire because they attack us. And this," Fordo waved the datapad, "It like book."

"Hmm, a book you say? But you say the Empire attacked your Republic?"

Fordo would nod and the old man then muttered something about the Empire always looking for unnecessary fights.

"Clone soldiers?" The old man continued, "Do you mean that you are all identical siblings?" The old man pointed to the rest of Fordo's men. Even though some of those men had unique haircuts or a facial tattoos to distinguish themselves from each other.

"Yes. We all brothers."

The banter with the old man would continue until he directed them to the Koan Forest, which was another place RT3 had to visit, and is where the old man mentioned that there is a village of the elves in the forest. The forest itself would take hours to walk on foot but is a short ride away by speeders. On their way there, Ray and Hoot talked to each other about the elves.

"That old man mentioned these 'elves' have pointy ears and live in tree houses." Started Ray.

"They live in tree houses? Like the Wookies? But pointy ears? Hmm, I'm reminded of this one Jedi. Who was it again? Ahh! Jedi Master Fay!" Hoot said.

"Master Fay? Who's that?"

"A pointy eared Jedi! Blond hair, pale skin, and was one of the older Jedi around. It's been said though that she died at around the beginning of the war so she never got to command any clones."

"Hoot, how could possibly know about some random Jedi who wasn't even a General who led clones?"

"I heard about her from some 212th troopers. Apparently, General Kenobi blabbed about her as an example of the peace we should be fighting for."

"You do know that there's plenty of near-human and non-human Jedi with pointy ears that are easier to remember. Ever heard of General Yoda?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just remembering Master Fay though because I did see a holoprojection of her once and she's well, kinda hot."

Before Ray could answer Hoot's baffling remark, Fordo ordered all the speeders to stop. Once all the speeders stopped, Fick questioned Fordo on what was wrong.

He answered, "The horizon's burning."

Fordo, Fick and Noah dismounted from their speeders while the others waited. Fick and Noah watched with amazement as large sections of the forest in front of them were ablaze. Fordo remained focused and ordered the two others to use their macrobinoculars to find a possible cause for the fire.

On his second scan of the burning woods, Noah called to Fordo, "Sir! There's something to our 10 o'clock." Fordo and Fick followed Noah's direction and saw something that would surprise even a seasoned ARC like Fordo.

Large red wings began to peek over the treetops as the biggest dragon any of the troopers have ever seen started to rise above the forest canopy while at the same time, spewing a torrent of fire at its supposed enemy.

"Ugh, I'm reminded of the Zillo Beast again." Noah shuddered.

"Probably has the same temperament too." Fick commented but he continued, "What should we do now, Captain?"

Fordo didn't answer and after staring at it for a few minutes, the red dragon roared and flew away from the direction of the clones. Fordo took a moment to take in what he saw but he finally made his order, "We're going into the forest."

"W—Why, sir?" Noah questioned.

"Do you think an animal like that would just burn down a large part of the forest for no reason?"

Fick and Noah then remembered that they were heading to a village that was in the forest.

Surely enough, a short ride later and some sporadic rain to put out the fires, the troopers were treated to the burnt remains of what used to be the elves' village. Fordo ordered the men to spread out and look for any survivors.

"The ground's still hot. Does the Captain think there will be any survivors from all this?" Questioned Alloy as he sifted through the burnt wreckage of a home.

"There probably won't be but we should still have a look around." Cabby said. It was then he came across a severely burnt corpse as he pushed up some debris. Cabby nearly gagged at the sight.

While his men looked around, Fordo came across the town well. He readied the flashlight on his helmet but he hesitated slightly. He was expecting a grisly sight to be at the bottom of the well. He imagined that the well was the likely place anyone on fire would have likely jumped into as a final resting place. Readying himself, Fordo shone the light to the bottom of the well. While he was glad there wasn't a horrifically burned body or bodies at the bottom, he was surprised to find a young woman floating in the water instead.

"Fick, Noah, Ramius! Get the rope! We have a survivor!" He called.

The three troopers quickly helped Fordo to rappel down the well and grab the survivor. Once he came up with the survivor, Ramius, who was the team's medic, quickly went to work.

While Ramius examined the young woman, Hoot quickly saw the similarities of his earlier conversation with Ray but Ray told him to shut up as Zipper came by and gave a report to Fordo.

"Sir, judging from the debris and distribution of bodies, there were likely 32 structures in the village. However, we only found 23 bodies, which are too few for a settlement of this size. It is likely though that many of the inhabitants were killed when the structures collapsed on top of them."

"What a disaster. Even if we were to assume three people to a structure, including the bodies you found, it still means about a hundred people have died. We should probably report to the General and nearby settlements that there's a dragon on a rampage. Cabby, do we have comms with Command?"

"It seems Command hasn't put up a communications tower yet. I'm still not getting a signal on the holoprojector."

Fordo sighed while Ramius came up to report, "How's the girl?" Fordo questioned.

"She was suffering from hypothermia but we've removed her wet clothes and bundled her up with a thermal blanket to keep her warm."

"Is she awake?"

"No. It looks like she's just unconscious and she's not in any danger of dying."

"Good. Can she be moved? We need to leave and warn Coda Village about this before we go back to base."

"Yes, she can. I'll load her into my speeder."

"Alright, let's move out!"

Another short ride back to Coda Village, the same old man was surprised by the clones' account of what happened to the elves' village in the Koan Forest.

"Wiped out by a dragon!?"

"Yes. We saw large red dragon burn settlement down. It appropriate to warn of danger." Fordo said.

"There is only one kind of dragon that does such a thing, a fire dragon!"

"Fire dragon?"

"Yes. Such beasts are an ancient menace. It is surprising that there's one awake after so many years. Many have tried to kill such creatures; so-called heroes, elves, wizards, even entire armies. But they have all perished in their attempts."

"I understand. We save one from elves' village. Young woman." Fordo proceeded to show the old man the elf survivor stashed in the enclosure of Ramius' modified speeder.

"Only one survivor? A pity."

"You take her?"

"No. Our customs are too different. She will find it difficult to integrate with us. Besides we must leave while we still can."

"You leave home?"

"Yes. Once a fire dragon has tasted flesh, it will not stop in its rampage to destroy everything around it. Everyone!" The old man began to address the whole village, "We must abandon our homes! Take only your most valuable possessions! Try not to take too much; it will only slow you down!"

A mild panic set in as all the people in the village began to scramble back to their homes and readying their things and carts to leave. At the same time, people were also spreading the old man's words to abandon the village.

The old man turned back to Fordo, "We appreciate your warning, Republic soldiers. I must ready my things as well. Farewell."

Left to his squad, Fick questioned Fordo on what was to be done next. Fordo began to think that since the people of the village couldn't take the elf survivor, she would have to be admitted as a refugee in their care. As for the village, their standing order was to make friends, so helping out the village in its evacuation will certainly help grow a friendship.

"We'll stick around and escort these people until they're safe. Spread out; help who you can."

On the outskirts of Coda Village, Lelei La Lalena and her teacher, Cato El Altestan hurried themselves to pack as much as they could into their cart. Cato proceeded to curse the dragon for his predicament as he had fallen down the stairs with his stack of books.

"Damn dragon, forcing me out of my home! I hope the gods strike that dragon down with sterility!"

Lelei informed him that the books he brought down simply couldn't fit into the cart anymore, "Master, we cannot take on anymore things. The cart is already heavy."

Cato continued on the ground like a spoiled child, "No! I must have my books with me!"

"Master, just take the books you feel hold the most value. Now get on or we will be left behind."

Cato got up and questioned his apprentice, "Get on? What do you mean by that? I have no interest in getting on little girls like you." Cato then developed a perverted face much to the displeasure of his apprentice, "I'd much rather climb on that curvy older sister of yours! Hahaha!"

Lelei remained silent and simply blasted her foolish teacher with freezing magic.

"Whoa! Calm down, Lelei! Magic is sacred and shouldn't be abused! Whoa!"

Once Cato finally gave up on his childish antics and boarded the cart, Lelei tugged the reins to move the donkey but the donkey tugged at the cart a few times and finally refused to move at all. Knowing that Cato persisted in overloading the cart despite her protests, she simply pulled out her staff and cast a levitation spell.

"Ohh, good thinking, Lelei!"

"But you said magic is sacred and should not be abused." She accused him.

"Heheh. A minor correction."

Reaching the village, the caravan had not yet moved. Lelei was relieved to have not been left behind because of her teacher's behavior. However, Cato questioned why the caravan had not left sooner. His question would be answered when one of the villagers approached him and said that one of the carts' axles had broken because of too much weight and was now blocking the way. Before they could help with some magic, they heard a strange language and a pair of white armored men with green markings running to the front of the caravan caught their eyes.

"I've never heard such a language!" Said Cato.

"I've never seen soldiers wear that kind of armor before." Said Lelei.

She dismounted to see where the white armored men were going. Upon reaching the front of the caravan, she saw a horse in pain, struggling on the ground. The broken cart was on its side and a little girl, she assumed to be a passenger of the cart, was being tended to by one of the soldiers. She was surprised to see that without their helmets, the white armored men were human. She approached the little girl and noticed that her labored breathing indicated a fairly serious injury. Another one of the soldiers came behind her and she deduced that he was trying to tell her to get back. Before she could convey her intention in wanting to help, the struggling horse got up in a panic and flailed its legs wildly at them. Before she could curl up to protect herself, she heard a series of sharp pops and saw blue bolts hit the horse that then fell over dead. Looking behind her, she saw more of the armored men, one of them with their strange and small weapon pointed at the horse. The soldier who had been tending to the girl then seemed to be asking if she was fine. Lelei gave a nod in response and thought, 'These people saved us.'

As Fordo holstered his sidearm and Ramius went back to work to heal the injured girl, Noah questioned Fick on why the villagers weren't getting any help from the Lord or royalty of the land.

Fick answered, "It's simple, Noah. Who do you think fought us on Alnus Hill?"

By the afternoon and with the little girl fully healed, the caravan was finally on the move. There was still a sense of panic among the villagers, which led to some carts running into trouble as some tried to rush forward. For some of those carts, they run aground in the mud but Fordo and his men could simply move those forward with some pushing. Other carts though were not so fortunate with those carts ending up with broken axles or horses dying from exhaustion with no spares for backup. Despite some pleading from their occupants, Fordo decided to burn what the stragglers couldn't carry. The old man would question his choice out of concern that their actions might turn the people against them. He would tell the old man that if they couldn't let their things go, they were giving the dragon the advantage of catching up to them. In the back of Fordo's mind though, it didn't help that they still couldn't establish comms with the base at Alnus, so there would be no backup vehicles to help move the villagers around. Still, some of the young and elderly villagers were allowed onto the modified speeders as passengers.

Despite those hiccups, the caravan trundled on. Fordo kept the speeders close to the caravan with himself at the front even though the BARC speeders were having some difficulty keeping the same speed as the caravan. The unmodified speeders were simply unaccustomed to running at such a slow pace, only the modified speeders run by Cabby, Alloy, and Ramius were the ones not struggling. As they continued down the road, Fick would question what their destination would be. Since the villagers never told Fordo or his men if they had a destination in mind, Fordo understood that their lack of an answer for their destination was just them trying to get as far away from the area as they could.

Later on, Fick, who had been at the front right side of the caravan looking for any danger, spotted something on his macrobinoculars and asked for the caravan to halt. While the villagers whispered among themselves why they had stopped, Fick directed Fordo at what he was seeing.

"Sir."

"What is it, Fick?"

"There seems to be a mass of black birds up ahead."

Fordo lowered his own macrobinoculars to look up ahead and surely enough, an abnormal amount of black birds were covering the upcoming road. Fordo radioed the rest of the men on the internal comm as he flipped his macrobinoculars up.

"They're just birds. They should all fly away when we get close."

The caravan began to move again but as they got closer, it would be Fordo asking them to stop again.

"Sir?" Fick questioned but would eventually notice what Fordo was seeing.

Fordo remained silent as he saw a girl up ahead walking towards them. He took note of her black and red clothing, which almost looked like a funeral dress to him. What caught Fordo's particular attention, as well as getting him to grip his sidearm, was the large halberd the girl was casually holding. The girl also carried a smirk that made him increasingly wary of her intentions.

He radioed his men, "No sudden moves. If she looks like she wants to swing that thing around, mow her down."

His men complied as the villagers heard sharp clicks from the clones disengaging the safety from their blasters.

The girl began walking towards them and called out, "Who are you? Where are you from? Where are you going?"

Fordo partially understood what the girl was saying but before he could call out and answer the girl, most of the children from the caravan came bursting out claiming that the girl was an Oracle. The children approached the girl and looked happy to answer the girl's questions.

"Ohh, children. Where are you from?" She said as the children gathered around her.

"From Coda Village!" Answered one child. By this point, even some of the adults had approached the girl.

"Ohh, why are you leaving?"

"We had to flee our village, Oracle. There is a fire dragon close by so we had to abandon our homes." An old woman answered.

From a short distance, the clones observed the villagers' behavior towards the stranger. "They seem to be praying to her." Ramius said.

"Maybe we should take it easy then if these people seem to like that girl. Right, sir?" Noah said to Fordo.

Fordo was still skeptical about the girl's intentions but he did agree with Noah. "Right, at ease. Still, keep your eyes open."

The girl was intrigued by the old woman's answer for leaving her village but the girl then directed her attention at Fordo and approached him at his speeder. "Who are these strange people, children?" She asked the question directed at the children who followed her along.

A child behind her answered, "Oh, they saved us. They're good people. They say they're from the Republic."

"Ohh, so they're not forcing you out of your village?"

"No, Oracle. They were actually the ones who warned us about the fire dragon."

The girl looked at Fordo and the speeder. "How does this thing move and float?"

"I don't know but it's a comfier ride than our carts." The same child answered.

"Comfier, you say?" The girl quickly licked her lips and sent a seductive stare at Fordo. "I'd like to see how it feels to ride it, too."

Fordo ignored the intent of the girl's stare but he would feel very uncomfortable when the girl invited herself into his lap as she swung her weapon over him to climb onto his speeder. Fordo could also tell that this girl was trying to make him feel strange as she was sitting in such a way on him that was hitting all the inappropriate areas.

"Uhh, Captain?" Fick called.

Fordo answered back on the internal comms with some minor difficulty, "It's alright. A—As long as she's not threatening any of us and these people regard her with r—reverence, we shouldn't act rashly. Still, stay sharp for our guest here. Let's move on."

Once everyone returned to the caravan, they began to move again. Fordo continued to ignore the constant smile and piercing stare his passenger was giving him as he got his speeder moving again.

Five hours more into the trip, Noah voiced on the comms that they were approaching Roche Hill. Fordo noted that this landmark meant they were quite far from the village now. Still, he felt uncertain about the situation as the weather seemed to be getting warmer. Fordo would become concerned about water for the villagers. They didn't have much with them to share. Although, the rising heat didn't bother him and the other troopers much as clone armor kept the person inside well insulated and at a normal temperature while the HUD in a clone's helmet kept track of the temperature outside it. The increasing temperature would catch Fordo's attention as he had noticed that the outside temperature had been steadily rising over the last few minutes. Starting to feel apprehensive, he began looking around the sky.

"Ohh, what seems to be the problem, Republic warrior?" His passenger questioned.

Fordo didn't answer and continued to scan the sky. Once his view got closer to the sun, his helmet automatically adjusted for the brightness and he noticed a faint object moving from the direction of the sun. At first, Fordo wasn't too worried as the faint object turned out to be a small dragon flying at them. A small dragon was hardly a threat to them.

Suddenly, Fordo ordered for his men to ready for battle as the small dragon was quickly eaten midair by the large red fire dragon he saw burn the elves' village earlier that day.

The fire dragon made its presence known to the caravan by giving a loud roar and proceeding to burn the carts at the rear of the caravan. The people of the caravan quickly flew into a panic as the other carts began to scatter all over the place with some villagers simply abandoning their carts and running on foot.

The fire dragon landed on the ground and began breathing its fire at any carts and people unlucky enough to be close by.

"Sir! Our passengers! Should we disengage?" Alloy called trying to bring Fordo's attention to the people inside the modified speeders.

"No time! Tell them to hang on!" He ordered.

Fordo and his men quickly sprang into action as they got their speeders into an arrow formation and began firing on the fire dragon with the light blaster cannons the speeders were equipped with. Unfortunately, the blaster cannons were only annoying the creature and were hardly hurting it.

'Damn! This thing's skin is like an ablative armor!' Fordo thought as he saw that the blaster bolts being absorbed by the skin of the beast with thin pieces of the skin flaking off. He then ordered his men to simply keep firing at the dragon so its attention was on them and not on the carts and people that were still fleeing.

Due to the sudden acceleration and wild maneuvers that the clones had to be take to avoid the fire dragon's breath, the elf in Ramius' speeder suddenly woke up as she banged her head against the enclosure. The elf shook off the hit and was bewildered by her surroundings. Catching a glimpse of the fire dragon, the elf immediately tried to catch Ramius' attention by shouting at him in her language and flailing her hands.

"Hey! When did you—" Ramius said looking back at the elf but stopped when he noticed she began gesturing to him by pointing at her eye and saying a word in her language repeatedly. Ramius then took a quick look at the fire dragon and noticed an arrow in its left eye.

"Captain!" Ramius called.

"What is it!?" Fordo answered.

"The eye, sir! Aim for the eyes!"

"Copy that! Fick, Noah, Ray, Hoot, Zipper! You're carrying S-variants! You'll have to ride with one hand but blast that dragon's eyes!" Fordo ordered as he also pulled out his DC-17 hand blaster and began taking shots at the dragon's eyes. All the speeders began circling the dragon as the clones took their shots.

The fire dragon started to flail at the concentrated fire on its undamaged eye. It then stopped moving wildly once it raised its arms to protect its head.

"It's stopped! Cabby! Alloy! You've got launchers! Any one of you, take the shot!" Fordo ordered.

Both Cabby and Alloy reached for a RPS-6 rocket launcher that was gladly handed to them by the passengers they carried with some frantic prodding on what a rocket launcher is. Both clones checked that their backs were clear for back-blast and Alloy managed to shoot a rocket off first. Unfortunately, the dragon was smart enough to realize that whatever was coming at it was dangerous and managed to dodge Alloy's shot.

Upon Cabby's turn, he also fired off his rocket but Cabby fumbled his shot as he had to readjust where his speeder was going.

"Dammit! It's another miss!" Hoot called.

Suddenly, the girl on Fordo's lap jumped off his lap and in one swift motion before she landed on the ground, threw her halberd at the dragon's feet which destabilized the ground it was standing on. Losing its footing, the dragon managed to fall right into the path of Cabby's shot.

BOOM!

The passengers the troopers carried jumped at the loud sound the explosion made and once the smoke cleared, Cabby's shot had severed the dragon's left arm. The dragon roared in pain and stared intently at the clones before it quickly retreated as it flew up and out into the horizon.

All the speeders stopped as the clones took in the actions they just did.

Taking the time to sort through wreckage and burying the bodies of those who perished in the fire dragon's attack, night had fallen but was illuminated by purple lights rising from the ground. They noticed that this was something that they had also seen after those battles at Alnus. The little female wizard the clones met in the village explained to them that the lights were the souls of the deceased. While fascinated by the explanation, the clones stood to the side silently as they watched the survivors of the caravan offering up their prayers. Once their little ceremony was over, the remaining villagers began packing up.

"Captain, the villagers say their heading to nearby settlements or relatives to start up their lives again." Fick reported.

"Well, tell them good luck." Fordo said.

"Unfortunately sir, there is a problem."

"Oh."

"The villagers are reluctant to take any kids or old folks who have no families and there's also the injured. Ramius thinks we shouldn't leave the injured to well..." Fick then whispered, "their medical care."

Fordo decided to talk to the old man they had become acquainted with at Coda Village if there was any way some of the villagers would reconsider not abandoning the orphaned kids or elderly.

"You must think poorly of us." The old man said.

"No, not it. We want to know if there no other way with your decision." Fordo said.

"Unfortunately, that's how it must be. We still have to take care of our own. We don't have the resources to take care of more people. Still, from the bottom of our hearts, we sincerely thank you, Republic soldiers, for saving our lives and taking in those we can't care for ourselves."

On those final words, the old man and the rest of the caravan left the clones with a good number of refugees. As the caravan slowly disappeared into the distance, Fordo began thinking of his reasoning for taking refugees when their were no explicit orders to take any. Once the caravan was out of sight and the waving of goodbyes from the leftover refugees stopped, Fordo made up his mind turned to his men and the refugees and ordered, "Alright, let's head back to base."

Author's Note: Thank you to all of you who have taken the time to read this as well as to those of you who posted a review. Now to address some things.

Firstly, I haven't really thought of making this a 'clone trooper x harem' story. It might naturally gravitate towards this with Fordo being the most obvious target because he's essentially Itami here. With people like Rory, who favor the warrior type, or Lelei, who appreciates kindness, it certainly points that way for him. I'll have to think on this as I write on about how Fordo's relationship with women will be. This likewise extends to any of the other troopers who will be in the story.

Now, Rory. Will she be treated with hostility given some of her traits? I have thought on this and she will be treated with some skepticism at first but she's gonna end up as an ally at the end.

Next, is this gonna deviate from Gate canon? Right now, I'm using the Gate canon as a guide to just move the plot along although I've thought ahead and I'm planning on the biggest change coming when they leave for Coruscant for the Senate hearing. The hearing will go just as it was in canon, it's what happens after that matters. Just saying it now, no Hakone style shootout with battle droids or bounty hunters or whatever. Disappointing as that may sound, I always did hate that part in Gate anyway.

Lastly, will the Empire be fighting a two front war? If it's someone from the Special Region and the Republic squeezing at the Empire on both sides, maybe. I haven't really thought that far ahead. If it's the CIS being that someone, I'm gonna say no. Given that I've mentioned that the planet may be in Wild Space or the Unknown Regions and may not even be in the Star Wars galaxy altogether, the CIS are not gonna get involved in the Special Region.