DAY 257, DROPSHIP, EN ROUTE TO GHOSTSHIP
One-five, also known as 'Vinn', worked with the Delta squad since the Geonosis incident. The squad in general was called upon for increasingly dangerous missions such as sabotage, infiltration and assault missions. Vinn would accompany the squad on a few, but spent a large amount of time on Kamino and other planets, working as a bodyguard, an under cover agent and more of the stealth operations.
She has kept the fact that she is no normal Commando a secret from the Delta team and the rest of the galaxy for the entire time she has been in service. Her number was added to the Delta team roster three moths after the Geonosis incident. Of course, as she predicted, Lin-Yu gave her that verbal beating upon her return and Taun-We had also lectured her for a while.
Currently, Vinn is en route to an abandoned republic ship to rendezvous with Delta squad at 0600 hours.
Vinn stood up and walked over to the display case. She lightly ran her fingers over the glass and sighed. Her armor was brand new and custom-fitted. Her only issue with that was it was a mirror image of her body; it followed every curve and it would blow the whole thing.
Her old armor had been fried on her last mission. Assigned to protect an ambassador from separatist spies, she had been caught in crossfire and all the circuits had been overloaded. She had headed back to Kamino for a refit, and someone let slip that there was to be a total custom fit. It fit perfectly and it was much better than her old one. But it was too perfect.
She was being shipped off to meet up with the Deltas. Vinn hadn't seen them in a bit, but received communiqués and updates weekly from Scorch. She smiled to herself as she sat down at the desk. She pulled up the Delta's profiles and personal records. Each commando had their own file plus a record timing every one of the individual missions to date.
"SCORCH" She read to herself. She smiled as she skimmed over the description that his closer superiors had given him.
"RC-1262
War does funny things to people. Similarly, some people do funny things with war. Six-Two is the Delta's resident wisecracker, regularly dropping a world-weary bon mot into the stew of violence and destruction that serves as the Deltas' steady diet. A competent soldier, and an excellent explosives technician, Six-Two has an overdeveloped sense of irony that could be mistaken for fatalism. 'Scorch' earned his nickname after an ordnance accident that left him and Sergeant Walon Vau without eyebrows for a short time."
Vinn smiled. She had only seen pictures of Sergeant Vau and could just picture him with no eyebrows. She actually pulled up his file and edited out the eyebrows for the heck of it. She laughed long and hard at the serious picture of the Sergeant eyebrow less. Next was Boss' file.
BOSS
RC- 2238
Even among clones, there is a hierarchy. Three-Eight is undisputed leader of the Deltas. Relatively taciturn, when he speaks, it's usually to bark out an order to his squad. Three-Eight has earned the respect and loyalty of his squad, and he repays that dedication in strong leadership. Despite being trained by Walon Vau, Three-Eight somehow inherited Jango's strong Concord Dawn accent and speech patterns.
She wondered at who Jango might be. Maybe he's the donor for this whole thing. She thought to herself. Nodding, she said aloud "Come to think of it, I remember scanning my DNA before that surgery and tried to match it with the DNA records on Kamino. They matched with a 'Fett', maybe Jango's his first name…" shaking her head, Vinn moved on to Fixer.
FIXER
RC-1240
The acknowledged 'second-in-command' of the Deltas is a gruff, by-the-book type of clone. He insists on calling his squad mates by their batch designations, rather than the more colorful nicknames they acquired. In the heat of battle, he's most often the one urging the rest of the group to press onward. Known to the others as 'Fixer,' Delta Four-Oh is the resident technology expert, and often handles computer slicing and code-breaking duties. Four-Oh was a favorite of the borderline sociopathic Vau - as they shared a common obsession with tech and tactics.
"He's a sociopath as well," Vinn said to herself. "When he's off-duty, he's tinkering with one thing or another…" she paused and stared at the screen blankly for a moment. Shaking herself mentally, she read the final file: Sev's
SEV
RC-1207
Some soldiers fight because they have to; others fight because they like it. Oh-Seven is definitely one of the latter. Most of the time he's a coldly efficient killer with a grim sense of humor. But when things get hairy, he gets scary. Other members of the squad suspect that someone spiked his cloning vat.
Vinn laughed aloud after she read the final sentence. "It's true, most likely." She said. She remembered spilling some chemical or another, most likely alcohol, accidentally onto a cloning vat when she was younger. It must have leaked through. "Oops…" she had said, and high-tailed it out of there, allowing the blame to fall on some other unfortunate soul. Vinn had thought that the clone had been killed off; instead, it was most likely Sev.
"At least I know why he dislikes me so much," she smiled to herself. "I'd be mad at me if I had been in his position…"
A voice sounded over the COM. "One-five, we'll be ready in ten."
"Acknowledged." She said and strode over to the display case. She opened the door and pulled out her helmet, the blue paint shining and new. "Be there in five."
Vinn pulled on her helmet as she walked brusquely out of her room. She stopped by the armory and picked up a blaster and some useful attachments. She attached a sniper pack to her left leg and walked out with a handful of extra clips for the rifle. "Alright," she said to a trooper at the airlock. "Let me at it." The airlock door opened and Vinn jumped out into the vacuum of space.
"One-five," a voice said over the COM, "you're going to need to meet up with the rest of the Delta squad as soon as possible. This mission is very vital."
"Roger." Vinn said as she headed toward a maintenance hatch on the outer hull. You know, she thought to herself, I can talk with the troops normally, and I barely even know them, but I can't speak a word to my team… weird…
She landed softly on the hatch and pried it open, slipping inside as the ship automatically resealed it.
Okay, Vinn thought, oh where oh were have my dear Deltas gone? She smirked as the singsong tune played in her head for a moment. She followed the maintenance shafts into the main ship and stumbled upon a few scavenger droids. One dove at her head and latched onto her helmet.
Vinn released her melee knife and gutted the piece of trash, throwing it violently to the ground. Kicking it, she continued on. There wasn't much to fight except for stragglers; it seemed as though the Deltas came through here already. Or one of them had. Observing the way the Trandosian bodies were scattered around, the scorch marks on the once-neatly polished metal flooring, and how most of the bodies were halfway up the walls, it was safe to assume that Scorch had come this way.
Just follow the dead bodies… Vinn thought grimly. And she did just that. After a few moments, she deviated into an air duct. She had heard a scream and was interested on what it was. Peeking down from the duct, she saw Three-eight, Boss, take down a green-skinned Trandosian. She clicked her COM twice, signaling that she was around and opened the grating to the hallway.
Three-eight didn't respond. Either he was preoccupied or she was seeing things. Sighing, she turned around, looking for him. I'm seeing things, that's not good. Vinn thought. Shaking her head, she moved onward.
Walking cautiously through a door, a projectile weapon sounded and Vinn was almost blown off her feet. Regaining her balance, she fired away at a few stubby Slavers. Their green scaly faces contorted in pain as the plasma from her weapon sliced them open. A few droids showed up and soon enough, it was a party. There were about fifty of them, one of her. She ducked behind a corner and chucked a grenade into the group. Static sounded in her speakers and 'pained' cries from the droids pierced the air.
Grinning, Vinn sidestepped from around the corner and took down a majority of them. Her shields had been almost fully drained and her health status bar was winking orange. Not good.
A shot rang out from behind her and she heard someone call out "You need a hand?"
Without thinking, she replied "No, doing just fine here all by myself." Her voice was slightly sarcastic as she shot another droid in the head. It spun around on its heel, shooting wildly and fell to the floor. "I'm just almost dead, out of thermal detonators, out of Anti-armor ammo, I have no secondary weapon, my pistol does nothing to these losers, oh, and I'm on my last clip of blaster ammo. Doin' swell"
"Almost as sarcastic as you, Scorch." A familiar voice said. It was that 'Concord Dawn' accent. Boss. Crap.
Vinn turned around after she had finished killing off a slaver. "Hi." She said calmly. Behind her helmet, she was sweating. She had to respond to that. She hadn't seen them in so long, she had forgotten that sarcasm and tone of voice. Slapping herself mentally, she forced herself to stand and take any lecture that Boss had planned for her.
Instead he said nothing and brushed past her, motioning for the others to follow. Sev turned around and gave her a baleful look from behind his faceplate. Darnit, Vinn thought. They would have noticed the armor anyway. She lowered her head for a moment and trailed along behind the squad. I really did it this time.
An explosion sounded off to Vinn's left. She whipped her head around and saw fire. Looking at the retreating Delta squad, she headed toward the source. A clone trooper lay on his back, clutching a wound at his side. "You alright?" Vinn asked, kneeling down. "What happened?" she said as she applied Bakta to his wound. That was prohibited, but she felt obligated to help the trooper.
"This thing… I think… a Trandosian…" the trooper started. His voice was strained. Vinn knew he wasn't going to make it and stopped the Bakta application. "But it was huge…it couldn't have been a slaver… it was…" the trooper's voice trailed off and he went loose in her arms. Vinn stared at the trooper's body.
"A Trandosian? But not a Trandosian? Odd..." she stood up, took the trooper's ID tag and turned to investigate the fire and explosion. Another explosion rocked the decks, throwing her off balance.
"Deltas, report!" Boss barked over the COM.
"Oh-Seven fit for battle."
"Four-zero, a-okay."
"Six-two, ready to go."
Vinn was going to respond, but was tossed off her feet as the door next to her blew open. She cried out in pain as she hit the metal wall. "One-Five, report!" Boss yelled into the COM.
Vinn coughed and tasted copper. " Nasty," she muttered to herself. "Just fine, Boss," she said, pulling herself off the floor. "One-five, ready to… oh my god…" a huge figure stepped out of the burning doorway and looked Vinn square in the faceplate. It was big, green and scaly. "Like a Trandosian, but not a Trandosian…" she muttered. "Boss," she said into the COM, "we've got one big-ass non-friendly down here. This might take a few seconds." She took a fighting stance. There was no way that weapons could kill this thing. She'd have to do it the hard way.
"Bring it, lizard-boy!" Vinn shouted as she charged forward. She threw a punch and the thing blocked it. It had abandoned its weapon and was fighting with free hands. It grabbed her wrists and pulled her down, bringing its knee up at the same time. The creature's knee slammed into Vinn's gut. Time seemed to stand still as it pulled a roundhouse kick while she was still in the air.
She yelled out as she broke through three different walls and landed in the midst of power lines, broken metal and a myriad of other materials. She could tell her lip was bleeding. Coughing again, she got blood on the inside of her faceplate. "So nasty…" she murmured.
"Vinn, report." Boss said. He hardly ever used her nickname, except when he was ticked or worried.
She sent an encrypted message to his and the other's helmets. I can't move, leave me here, I'll be fine. Finish what you started. Don't worry about me.
"No can do, Vinn" Scorch said. "Nobody in this squad gets left behind."
Vinn found her voice and yelled into her mic. "Get out of here! I'll only get in your way!" there was no response. "What are you waiting for?" she cried as the Trandosian picked its way through the rubble. "Get going!"
"We're not leaving." Sev said harshly. Vinn stared at the massive Trandosian as it pointed its gun to her head.
"No, just… just go… I'll…" Vinn tried to move, but her body wouldn't respond. Move, darn you, move! She thought angrily at herself. Get up or you're dead! Move it! Her finger twitched in response. Move… please…
"Vinn," Scorch said into the COM. "Vinn!"
"I'm getting low vital signs from One-five." Fixer said. "If we want him to live, then I suggest we get moving."
"You mean if we want her to live, Fixer." Scorch corrected. "And yeah, it's right through this door." They rounded the corner and saw Vinn standing over the dead Trandosian Elite. "Vinn?" said Scorch.
Vinn looked slowly over at the sound of her name. Her vitals were dangerously low, and she looked shaky. Her knees buckled and she fell face first to the ground. She didn't get up again.
"Vinn!" Scorch exclaimed. "Sev, help me out here," Sev grunted and helped Scorch pick up Vinn's body. She was still breathing, but just barely.
"Sev… Scorch…" she managed to say. "I thought you had left… you should have left…"
"We are warriors here," Scorch said. "Nobody gets left behind." Vinn smiled. She lost consciousness and had to be carried the rest of the way.
The Trandosian…. What had happened? She looked wildly around and saw the Elite point his gun at her head. She willed her body to move and it did. She jumped up and landed behind the Trandosian. Leaping in the air she pulled a roundhouse kick to the back of his head, snapping its neck.
The bones made a sickening crunch as they snapped and the thing fell down face first on the ground. She walked over to the body and stared at it blankly. She heard someone call her name and she looked over to see the squad. They were all standing at the ready, willing to die helping a teammate.
Her knees gave out and she fell to the floor, unable to move again. She was hoisted up and was carried.
"We are warriors." One of them said. "Nobody gets left behind."
The words repeated in her head. Nobody gets left behind. Nobody.
Vinn regained consciousness in a soft bed of an infirmary. She looked blearily around and noticed an IV sticking out of her arm. How long was I out? She asked herself. I must have lost tons of blood… or something… what happened after I blacked out? She lay in the bed staring at nothing.
After a while, Vinn pulled up the mission logs from her portable data pad.
Mission 11346: AKA MISSION "GHOST SHIP"
SUCCESSFUL
DESC:
Mission Ghost Ship was successful. There were the proper sabotages performed and every member of the Delta Squad exited alive. The data on the ship had been sliced and downloaded to the Republic's main battle computer.
Even though Deltas 07 and 26 were captured, Deltas 38 and 40 successfully…
Vinn scrolled down the page. She knew that already… what happened afterwards?
Delta member 15 was
She skipped that part as well. She briefly scanned over the whole document, but found nothing. She would talk to the boys later and get what really happened. Vinn sat up again as a medic came into the room.
"You took quite the beating." The medic said, her voice soft. She checked Vinn's pulse and vital signs.
"Yeah, that Trandosian loser really did a number on me…" Vinn replied. "Hey, when can I get out of here?" The Med looked at her and smiled.
"Tomorrow. You'll be fine by then." Vinn smiled widely and nodded.
"Great." She said happily, lying back down on the bed. Even though it was cushy and she sunk in it, it was better than a rock, and she fell right to sleep.
The other members of the Delta Squad had been pulled off duty while Vinn recovered. They spent most of their time in the sim-rooms, working on tactical strategies. Nothing seemed to work without Vinn. They would engage a certain movement, then get ambushed at the rear- where Vinn usually covered.
"Okay, when's Vinn getting let off?" Scorch asked after the second day.
"Tomorrow." Sev responded. "I don't see why we can't just leave and come back… Vinn can handle herself."
Fixer and Boss said nothing. They both stood cross-armed, leaning against the wall, staring moodily at the tiled flooring. Every one of them was out of armor- by orders, not their preference- and tension was thick in the air. They all felt uncomfortable in this situation. This was something that none of them were good at: sitting and waiting.
Everybody's on edge for some reason. Sev thought. I cant take much more of this sitting… He stood up and headed to his quarters. "See you later," he said stiffly as he turned his back and walked away.
"Someone's feeling happy today," Scorch remarked quietly. He hated waiting, hated everything about hospitals, hated sitting still. Yet he was forced to endure every one of those items while Vinn recovered. Trying to be the hero… he thought. Then he corrected himself. No, just trying to do what she thought was best…
