Ace felt the world fade into awareness around him. The dusty ground beneath him shifted slightly as he began to twitch awake. He slowly opened his eyes and took in the surrounding landscape, swiveling his 360 degree camera in order to get a better picture. He was lying on his back in a several feet deep ditch somewhere on the Geonosian battlefield. Border was crouched at the edge of the ditch laying down some sort of covering fire. Tap and Chance were standing against the edge to his left and right firing at unseen battle droids in assistance to Border. Tyy was crouched low just in front of Ace, medical bag open in front of him and comm link out. Ace could barely make out what he was saying, a plea for reinforcements.
Groggily Ace lifted himself into an upright position and shook his head. The entire squad instantly closed in around him, with Border speaking up first, "Ace! We thought that rock had done you in before the droids had a chance to." followed by the rest of the squad in quick succession with similar sentiments. Tyy spoke last.
"Ace, we need to move. Command says we overextended and reinforcements won't be able to get here in time."
The statement seemed to make the ones on the ridge jump back into position and continue blasting droids. However Ace took a mental step back and allowed his training to take over. He looked each direction down the trench and noted nothing to the left and a small hole in the ground to the right. Making a quick decision Ace sent a ping to the squad's huds to get to the hole. The unit moved as one, providing cover fire to stop droids from making it to their position before they could reach the hole. As Ace stood up he realized that he hadn't been out for very long, his mission clock only read another 5 minutes from when he last checked. However it was obvious that the time had made a difference, behind the squad was around 50 yards until the clone lines came into view. And in front of them was an endless horde of droids hell bent on annihilating the clones.
The entire squad made it to the hole in the ground in short order and quickly Border jumped down with his shield out, Tyy and Tap followed quickly and when Ace motioned for Chance to join them while he provided covering fire Chance responded by holding up his hand in a holding pattern while he reached into his pouch.
"This should slow the clankers down."
Ace saw Chance plant an explosive charge next to the hole before jumping down it himself. Ace followed suit just after.
It was pitch black when Ace hopped into that hole, he quickly shouted for them to turn lights on and Sabacc Squadron obeyed. It was a small tunnel with a stream of water running down the middle, walls made of red Geonosian rock. Chance shouted to the rest of the squad, "Let's move it people! That charge will take out the entrance and we don't want to be under it when that happens."
Immediately Sabacc began moving down the tunnel and after a few seconds of light running they heard metal footsteps overhead and Chance clicked the detonator. An explosion rocked the ground above them and Ace's sound dampers deafened him to the noise temporarily. They all saw rocks fall into the cave behind them, sealing them off from going the other direction. However an unintended consequence of the detonation was that the stability of the rest of the tunnel seemed to be thrown off. Ace shouted for them to run as more ceiling began collapsing behind them. An opening up ahead appeared before them as they ran from the rapidly collapsing roof and they dashed towards it with reckless abandon. It soon became apparent that the opening turned very quickly into a drop and with nothing but a feeling in his gut Ace shouted, "JUMP!" to the rest of his Squad.
The five clones take running jumps right over the edge seconds before the tunnel they were leaving collapses fully. They soared through the air of a large open cavern with flailing arms. Ace realized that the cavern was actually pretty deep, he couldn't see the bottom yet. Upon noticing that there was another opening on the other side of the cavern Ace quickly brought his Blaster up and tried to rapidly affix the grappling hook attachment, hoping desperately that his brothers were doing the same.
As soon as he felt his hook hit the rock Ace braced for a jolt which nearly knocked his breath out. And with a grunt he slammed armor first into the cavern wall. Looking around Ace saw that Tap, Tyy, and Chance had all made it to the wall with him, however when he looked up he saw another cable falling from the ledge, having missed. Reaching desperately Ace grabbed the falling cable and stopped Border from falling to his undoubtable death.
After hoisting themselves back up to the other entrance they began to regroup and reassess as they caught their breaths. Ace looked around and saw that the tunnel they had jumped from had totally collapsed, and the tunnel they jumped into went down an incredibly far distance. Looking at the tunnel they had grappled into, it appeared to lead deeper down the rocky corridors and away from the frontlines. Just as Ace was coming to the decision that they had to push forward a voice broke the silence.
"So, just to be clear, that's the second time you've saved one of our asses today Ace." The entire group began to laugh exhaustedly at the comment Tap had made, except for Ace. Something wasn't right. He held his hand up in a fist and the entire squad went silent instantly. Ace then used his HUD to turn up his outside audio amplifier. The noises of the tunnel, the rumbling of footsteps in the distance, and even a distant drip of water became that much louder to Ace, and he simply listened. Then after a second or two he heard it, was that… fluttering?
"Hide!" Ace shouted as he made a mad dash down the tunnel, after a few seconds of running he spotted an inlet of the tunnel with a large rock, he quickly ushered Sabacc Squadron behind it, gave one last look down the tunnel, and ducked behind it himself. Seconds later the fluttering grew louder, along with another noise, one extremely familiar. The fluttering passed by the group of clones in a group, Ace estimated around ten of the Geonosian bugs, and with them came a voice, the voice of a clone.
"Put me down you stupid bugs!"
Ace felt his throat tighten up, a brother, a vod, had been carried into these awful caves by one of the insects they were fighting in addition to the droids. Ace knew they had to try and help them. He looked back at his squadron's buckets and realized that even without seeing their faces he knew each of them were thinking along the same lines.
In a well rehearsed move Ace gestured for Border to take the lead down the tunnel, energy shield in front of him, he and Tyy moved right behind him blasters hovering just above the shield. Tap then moved in behind them, ready to provide ranged support, finally chance moved in last to cover the rear. And as one cohesive unit the squad of clones began pushing down the tunnel. For around fifty yards they didn't face any resistance. However as they reached an open room they suddenly found themselves face to face with a large group of Geonosians, the bugs flying around trying to get a firing angle on them which would avoid Border's shield unsuccessfully.
Sabacc Squadron began blasting through the bugs, however unlike the droids they faced previously the Geonosians screamed as they died. As one of Tyy's blaster bolts pierced straight through the head of a Geonosian it let out a horrible squeal before dropping to the ground motionless with awful brownish goo seeping from its carbon-scored head. As Tap hit one in the arm the entire thing flew away into the farthest wall of the room. It was horrific. And in about 30 seconds around fifteen of the bugs were on the ground with all manner of blaster wounds. After the blaster fire stopped the clones stumbled forward into the room.
Ace felt the bile rising in his throat and ripped his helmet off, seeing his fellow clones do the same from the corner of his eyes. For a second he breathed the stale air and felt the nausea receding, but then the smell hit him. As soon as the awful stench of bug and blaster fire hit his nostrils the bile from before returned in full force. It was only a few seconds before Ace released his MREs he had eaten on the flight to Geonosis onto the red rock of its underground tunnel system.
When Sabacc Squadron had regathered themselves and put their helmets back on none of them said a word. None of them had ever been the most talkative or social brothers, never helped by the intense nonverbal communication system they had built up with each other. This incident would not be talked about until the mission was over, but once it was they would talk about it, they all knew.
The Squad continued down the caves, more intent than ever to save the brother who the Geonosians had carried away. They had to kill more Geonosians along the way but in tight formation the flying bugs were like sitting ducks to the trained clones. Eventually Sabacc Squadron made its way down into a larger open area with many more of the bugs flying around. Before they could notice the clones they all sprinted behind a large rock and assessed the situation.
Ace realized that this must be the entrance to one of the droid factories below the surface of Geonosis. A large opening into a metal hallway with battle droids streaming out of it sat at the other end of the cavern. In between them and the droids were a swarm of bugs flying every which way. Rapidly Ace noticed that multiple geonisans were carrying clone troopers around, some fighting, some limp. And in horror he saw as the clone he had likely heard before was carried into the droid factory. Unspeakable horrors awaiting.
Ace and the entirety of Sabacc Squadron quickly began to strategize, they knew they had to do something, but they didn't have any heavy equipment, they didn't have any jedi force powers, they didn't have the numbers for an assault. Then chance pointed out something which gave Ace pause in his pessimism, they may not be jedi, droids, or tanks. But they were clones, and a damn good squad of clones at that. What had the Kaminoans always said was their advantage over droids? Oh yea, clones can think.