Chapter 25

Location: 2nd Patriot Division, Planet Phindar

The night was as dark as it was frightening. The squad didn't have much of a position, it was just a sharp deep depression with tall grass and a fallen rotten log on the right to provide some cover to the right facing the forest. A game trail cut through the underbrush ahead of them, and Sergeant Hemga knew that sooner or later they would have to move down it for a simple reason, they were far too exposed, the Clones knew they were here, the body of Dax that was laying to the left with a poncho over his body was evidence enough of that. He also had five wounded, three from a different squad and two of his own. But that still left his five remaining able-bodied troops to guard against a looming Clone counter-attack.

"You know it would only take one Clone with a grenade to kill us here sarge," Corporal Quasle whispered as he dropped onto his side next to Hemga, who was looking through his blue-tinted night vision goggles, which were just a cheap camouflaged civilian model you can pick up off any store shelf.

"I know, but we can't move these guys," the Duros squad leader whispered, "And I'm not about to leave 'em."

"You know that G'oul's not making it, we can carry the others to better cover through the forest back to our lines," Quasle replied, pointing to the badly wounded Koorivar.

"As long as he breathes we're not leaving him. But…it wouldn't hurt to scout a route back, I don't wanna sit here much longer without a way out. Take Fera and Ooran, scout about a hundred meters back through the forest, see if there's a way we can make it back," Hemga ordered.

"Roger that, Fera, Ooran, on me," the human corporal ordered and crawled out of the ditch on his belly followed by the eighteen-year-old brunette and the slightly wounded Quarren. This left them alone heading into enemy territory.

Corporal Quasle was young, being only twenty years old, a native of Fondor, he had followed his parents after they'd moved from Coruscant following being laid off of work thanks to excessive government regulations shut down their plant. They'd found work at a Techno Union factory there on Fondor, and from there he'd gone on to join the Patriot Forces when the threat of invasion by the Republic again threatened his family's welfare. So here he was, trying to do his part to protect his family, although crawling around here on this godforsaken miserable island he wasn't exactly sure how it all fit into the overall scheme of things. He'd managed to keep his thin beard due to relaxed grooming standards in the Patriot Forces, but he'd kept his hair reasonable short so it could stay underneath the patrol cap he had on under his helmet which was strapped under his chin. His tactical goggles had a primitive HUD that signaled the positions of his squadmates and the relative positions of other squads, platoons and companies should he need to know. Right now his glasses were under his night vision goggles as he made it to the treeline, and was now able to hear the trickling of water through the trees.

"A creek?" Fera asked, she was a native of Serenno, and was no friend of the Republic, seeing as her parents were very political and so was she by extension.

"Stream, if we find it we can follow it to the creek by our own lines," Quasle said with a nod, "Let's go."

"Right behind you," Ooran agreed, readying his T-21.

They climbed up and over a fallen tree and landed on their feet and crouched low, moving through the thick ferns that came up to their hips and hid anything below their prolific leaves and stems. The trees were close together, with high-up buttress roots making for a relative maze for the three Separatist soldiers to pick their way through. Fera stayed in the rear with Ooran between them, his repeater ready to swing behind or ahead to lay down suppressing fire as needed. Quasle still kept them moving forward, ducking and moving from tree to tree, A280 held tight to his shoulder, ready to raise it and engage.

"I don't like this…" Fera said quietly as they moved forward, finding a tricking stream pouring through a draw that lazily formed small pools as it poured through roots and made its way down through the jungle towards their own lines.

"Well it sucks but we're here, come on," Quasle replied as he now stepped into the stream.

His boot went in with a light splash, the pool was deeper than he had anticipated and he sank up to his shin and the boy stumbled slightly dropping his guard to catch himself on the buttress root to his left. But his foot slipped and he toppled down to the left and sat into the water and fell back into the pool squashing the local water mushrooms that rose to the surface like small lillypads. This made quite a disturbance and Quasle was instantly terrified of the noise he'd created.

"You okay?" Ooran asked as he leaned down, being more careful than his team leader had been.

"Yeah, sorry about that, might've just screwed us," Quasle said as he looked around, expecting Clones to start descending on them any moment.

"We can just get out of here and we'll-," Ooran said and looked behind him when they heard a sharp disturbance where Fera was standing. But when they looked back they didn't see her at all, just her helmet, laying on a fern stem.

"Oh shit…" Quasle said as he looked at the helmet with wide eyes.

"Where'd she go?"

"The Jedi," the Quarren said, crouching down and leveling his repeating blaster in the direction of their missing comrade.

"We need to fall back," Quasle whispered and looked around, and then saw a pair of figures zip in between a pair of trees, bounding towards them, "Oh we're so screwed."

"Freeze!" a voice ordered them harshly, and a Clone holding a DC-15 Blaster Rifle stood up and leveled it at them from behind.

Ooran swing the long heavy barrel around but took a bolt through the chest for his resistance, and fell back into the water with a splash but Quasle was able to move faster and fired at the Clone but the enemy trooper was quick and ducked down immediately. Another blue bolt from a Clone behind him lanced through his left shoulder and he lost all control as he felt the burning pain coursing through him and dropped his rifle down but held onto the grip and dropped to his knees in the water, gasping at the pain as he then let go of his weapon and grasped the wound which was still sizzling and burning. More Clones were now visible, aiming their weapons from incredibly close range. He couldn't grab his weapon in time, but didn't find it possible to really comply with their demands. Slowly drawing his knife he tried getting onto his feet, and one Clone who was down next to him that he didn't see took the stock of his DC-15 and slugged across the Separatist soldier's face and he collapsed, a cut across his cheek and his nose broken. The night vision goggles and helmet were dislodged, and was grabbed by a pair of troopers.

"Is he alive?" Quasle heard a different voice say as he was put on his knees.

"Yes General," one of the Clones responded.

"Put him in binders and take him and the girl to headquarters. We must learn our new enemy."

Location: Star Destroyer Constant Fury, Republican Guard Massing Point for Operation SWIFT COMET

The ship was impressive, even if it was the smallest of the Star Destroyer classes that KDY had built. Newly-promoted Commander Wain Kuat had seen this as his chance for advancement from the moment that he had laid eyes upon the list of ships in need of officers. The Victory-Class Star Destroyer he found himself approaching had listed an opening for the job of executive officer after its former XO had been given command of another Victory that rolled out of the slips over Kuat. He'd put his name in for consideration, and a couple days later he was contacted by the captain of the Constant Fury and given the good news. He was assigned officially the next day by Grand Admiral Drexel himself.

Wain had known that he would be safe on Drexel's growing staff, maybe even made an operations officer some day with the rank of captain. But that wasn't how he worked, that may have been the way the Kuat family did things, behind the scenes pulling strings, but this was a war. Wain had no intentions of sitting to the side, watching his career be advanced on someone else's coat tails. Here, on board a star destroyer he knew he'd show himself as the leader he knew he was. Despite the fact he was young, still only twenty-two, he knew that the massive duties of being the right-hand of the captain and overseer for a crew of five thousand was no small job. So he'd have to make an impression instantly if he were to succeed here.

The shuttle he was aboard came in right under the ship into her ventral hangar, and he was already on his feet. He straightened his brownish olive uniform, and pulled on his black gloves and made sure his new rank plaque was straight polished. It was something he was pretty proud of, two code cylinders and a spaced board of three blue tiles over three red tiles indicated a jump in seniority over Lieutenant Commanders, which was the highest of the junior officer grades and now he was in the ranks of senior officers. His hat had the usual Republican Guard emblem in place of the metal one on the GAR officers' hats, the insignia of the Republic. It made for a different-enough uniform from them to be distinguishable since they'd gotten rid of the red stripe a few weeks ago to make the manufacturing of uniforms easier for the company that made them. Wain finished his preparations by tightening his belt and checking his blaster pistol still in its holster.

The shuttle touched down and Wain stood up and was greeted by what he assumed was the ship's Command Master Chief Petty Officer judging by his three-by-two all gray tile board and three code cylinders stowed on his left chest pocket as was regulation for the enlisted ranks' uniform. The old grizzly Kuati NCO had his helmet on, the red helmet shining where it needed to shine and the clean uniform coat and gray pants and boots being perfectly smoothed and cleaned. The C/MCPO snapped off a salute and Kuat got down to the clean deck and returned it.

"Commander, welcome aboard the Constant Fury sir," the Master Chief greeted him once the formality had passed, "I'm Command Master Chief Korom, pleasure to have you aboard. The Captain's waiting for you in his quarters."

"Lead on then Master Chief," Kuat said as he passed the F-302's and F7's on the deck undergoing slight maintenance by their uniformed pilots and crewmen, each doing their job perhaps a little too diligently due to the presence of the Master Chief and the new XO.

"They seem a little wound up," Kuat noted as he returned salutes from enlisted personnel at every turn once they entered the halls.

"New XO sir, none of the lieutenants wants to have you jumping down their throats for someone in their section screwing up this early."

"Well there's going to be ass-chewing Master Chief, one way or another. The battle group's going into combat in three days, the captain will expect me to get the wrinkles out of the crew before that happens," Wain reminded the NCO as they got to a lift that would take them to the captain's quarters' level.

"The ship's got a good crew sir, many of them fought the ship against the Bulwark Fleet. The gunners are good, the damage control teams are better, and the hangar's working just fine seeing as we about lost half of it last time we were in action," Korom told him, but felt that he should give him a slight bit of exposition on that, "Enemy battlecruiser broke through the line trying to escape, pumped a full spread of concussion missiles right into the stern hangar bay from below. Those missiles ignited Y-Wing munitions being loaded onto our bomber squadron making a rapid landing for rearmament, lost every Y-Wing pilot and every hangar crewman in less than five seconds, over three hundred casualties in total. But we saved the ship despite that."

"Helluva job Master Chief, but I'll see for myself how good the crew is, brief your chiefs, there'll be response drills, gunnery and damage control drills, and station inspections within the hour and will go all day until they are done right. Understood?" Kuat deadpanned to the much older man.

"Aye sir, understood," Korom nodded, and the lift stopped and opened, revealing the section of the officers' quarters where the captain's own quarters were.

"I suppose this is my stop," Kuat said and stepped out, holding his bag over his shoulder, "Well, best get going Master Chief. This will only be a minute."

"Yes sir, third door on the right past the T-Junction sir."

"Thank you Master Chief."

Kuat walked with purpose to the captain's door, and checked his watch, and saw he was a full fifteen minutes early, right on time in the military. He knew it was the captain's quarters by the presence of two white and red armored Marines holding A280's in their hands standing guard. The door had the marking of a captain's rank plaque and his name below it. The two Marine guards snapped to attention, their A280's snapping to forty-five degrees up and their heads went up as they saw the commander approach.

"Commander sir," the corporal at the door greeted him and reached for the door control, "The captain's waiting for you sir."

"And you assume I am who I am?" Wain said in reply, noting a breach a security protocol, "Where's your code cylinder reader corporal?"

"Right here sir," the corporal nervously said, realizing his error and pulling out the scanner.

Wain snatched it out of the man's hand, and inserted his code cylinder and the information popped up showing who he was and that his current assignment was in fact here aboard the Constant Fury. To complete his identity verification he put his thumb on the print reader and DNA reader. It blinked green showing that he was who he said he was. He showed it to the Marine, and without a word put it into his hand.

"Now, if I hadn't been who I am what would you have done? No, I'll answer that for you, you would have let an intruder into the captain's quarters. Your name marine?"

"Uh…Corporal Stannik Derran sir, RM-4556."

"Corporal Derran consider this your first write-up from me," Wain said, pulling out a data tablet and scanned the man's insignia and hit the appropriate keys for submitting a disciplinary write-up, it was done right in front the man, just a part of his method to beat the lesson in, "Now will this be repeated corporal?"

"No sir, it won't sir," the young Marine said clearly grimacing behind his black T-visor.

Wain saw the marine's stance slouch in a fairly sad manner. He'd been on the ship less than ten minutes and had already ruined someone's day. But snapping a crew out of bad habits was his job. This wouldn't ruin the man's career, but he would get chewed out by his squad leader, platoon sergeant, platoon leader, first sergeant, and company commander. The lesson would be learned, and it wouldn't be repeated. So he walked into the captain's quarters to see the captain of the ship, Captain Rokk Toerry, waiting for him.

"Captain Toerry sir, Commander Wain Kuat, reporting for duty sir."

Captain Rokk Toerry was a big man, powerfully built but had a slight bit of age to him with squinty eyes and a big man's swagger. He had his uniform unzipped, not exactly prim and proper, as befitted a Kuati naval officer, and he looked over at his new XO, frowning at him slightly.

"You done berating my marines Commander?" he said, leaning back against his desk, taking a drag on a cigar before dropping it into a pan, having exhausted its contents.

"Uh, sir he wasn't complying with security protocol," Wain replied.

"Huh, well, that's the job. But don't go about making enemies of the crew, especially the Marines, they're the enforcers of those protocols. Now Commander Kuat, what news from on high?"

"Sir?"

"You were on the Admiral's staff, yet you requested duty as XO aboard a Star Destroyer, I'm assuming there's a reason for that. Looking for some action perhaps?" the big man asked calmly, "You think a coming offensive will give that to you?"

"Truthfully sir?" Wain asked, getting a nod of go-ahead from Captain Toerry, "As Grand Admiral the old man's got more to look after. He won't necessarily take an active part in the fighting anymore as our forces grow and take over more responsibility. I didn't want to be pushing reports around for the entirety of the war."

"And you thought duty as an XO would rid you of paperwork? You haven't learned much about being an officer have you?"

"At least here sir I'm like everyone else. Not getting special treatment," Wain shrugged.

"Ah, so that's what this is about huh Commander? Tired of seeing the looks you get from other officers when they hear your name is Kuat?"

"I'd be lying to you if I denied that sir," Wain nodded, casting his gaze low.

"Hmm, at least you're honest. So you're here to avoid special treatment? Well you won't get any on my ship. The job of XO is hard and it is constant. Your job is to maintain discipline of the crew and the readiness of the ship. Your action station is in the auxiliary bridge, in the heart of the ship forward of the reactor where you will manage damage control and be ready to take over the ship if I am dead or otherwise incapacitated. During blockade duty you will manage boarding and inspection parties for anything from light freighters to supertankers. You will meet me for breakfast in the officer's mess and we'll go over the day's orders. Then you watch begins at 0600 on the bridge and runs until 1300. From 1330 to 2000 you will oversee drills and inspections on cyclical basis throughout the ship. From 2030 to 2200 you will then go over reports with me in my office as they are brought in. Are you tracking commander?"

"Tracking sir," Wain replied, feeling slightly overwhelmed, but knew that was again part of the job.

Captain Toerry then looked to his clock on the wall, and motioned his head to it.

"Well Commander, it's nearly 0730, you should probably be getting to your watch and relieve Lieutenant Commander Jecx, our gunnery officer. Orders for the day are as follows: Conduct readiness exercises, maintain sector security, "

"Yes sir."

"Leave your things here, I'll have a steward take them to your quarters."

"Thank you sir."

"You haven't commanded a ship before have you Commander?" Toerry asked as Wain was about to snap off a salute.

"I had the bridge of the Basilisk for half an hour once," he shrugged.

"This ain't the Basilisk, and this isn't that kind of bridge duty, you're my XO now. Step up and do the job or I will replace you."

"Sir," Wain nodded and saluted, and was dismissed.

Wain had to pull up his ship's schematic to find his way, pretending to be reading a report instead of a map. This ship was nine hundred meters long and had dozens of weapons emplacements and five thousand personnel on board. It was no small ship he was aboard, now calling home. Droids and personnel were everywhere, saluting him as they passed. He was used to having other commanders and an admiral or two around him being on a staff, but here, he was second to only one, and that was enough to give him a great boost of confidence to be here outranking all who passed. But that put pressure on his shoulders, more than he'd ever felt before.

Location: Orbit over Bandomeer

The ship that dropped out of hyperspace was a Barloz-Class Medium Freighter, it was marked up like any normal produce freighter that frequently visited the world, but it wasn't. Inside were a dozen Caridan Commandoes, part of several waves of such special forces being deployed to forward recon the neutral planet for any Separatist presence that they could find and deal with. Republic Intelligence knew the crossroads world was a home to smugglers, bounty hunters, and criminal enterprises of every kind. But it was also a home to a Separatist spy network and a suspected sensor node on the dry world. Numerous old stone buildings of the capital made for good hideouts both Republic and Separatist intelligence agents and special forces who sought one another out in ways that were shady.

Murder, kidnappings, bombings, and shootouts were the rule of the land for the warring intel agencies of both sides who used local gangs as muscle and their eyes and ears. Colonel Myec had been in places like this, it was no small task to blend in and get in and out of their home base and find and destroy enemy forces under the noses of local law enforcement. He could see the spread-out capital city with its maze of walkways, skyscrapers, markets, and skylanes of traffic and it was crammed streets of speeders and speeder bikes and a pair of space ports, each dominated by either Republic or Separatist operatives, and doubtlessly their home bases on the planet.

"Well, we're here," Myec said as the team got ready to get off as they approached, "Go ahead and signal home base."

"Sir, home base isn't responding," the comms officer in the cockpit replied after a few tries.

Myec looked down at the spaceport and then at his men who'd heard everything, "Lock and load, be ready for contact."

They each had their A280CFE's, and all of them started assembling them into combat mode, their long-barrels off, and stocks attached for close quarters combat. All of them threw on their black armor, fully-loaded for combat. Each had a backpack with a side-tube filled with four of their small assistant combat drones, small droid spheres able to explode on order or kill an opponent on a different order.

"Deploy your droids, move out to home base, clear all sectors. Something's happened, I know it," Myec said to his men as they got to the dock and landed quickly, "You guys call for QRF, Team Dagger."

"Roger that sir," the ship's commander said and started broadcasting the appropriate code.

They knew what they were walking into, their ship had two guards, Corellian operatives specially trained in ship defense. It was dark out, perfect concealment, and the dozen Caridans were out of the ship and making a perimeter within seconds. Myec moved to the front entrance, knowing it led to their home base in the underground warehouse of the docks where Intelligence was established in a safe house that obviously wasn't answering their hails. They opened the old sliding door and breached two at a time, each clearing the hall in both directions after their combat mini-droids zoomed in ahead of them, beeping in their ears to signal that the coast was clear.

"Sending a droid through ventilation," Myec stated quietly, prying off a vent cover with his knife and sent one of his droids through, and it began sending a feed to his advanced tablet fixed to his wrist.

It moved silently, not touching the metal walls and zipping through and then dropped down, he could see light coming up from below, and he knew that he was there in the network of ventilation shafts that kept the warehouse well-cooled in the brilliant heat of day. He tapped a control on the droid and it deployed a small fiberoptic camera through the grating the vent cover and he was able to see that indeed something had gone wrong. The thirty people stationed at the safe house were scattered on the floor, blaster holes in their chest and black-clothed humans picking through their bodies as others with astromechs were trying to go through the three rows of computers on the main floor. It looked like it had been a helluva fight, damage was everywhere, carbon scoring cratered the walls and floor, and smoke hovered in the air. But it seemed as though the Separatists had lowered their guard now that they had won their victory, sifting through the wreckage and bodies shining their flashlights around leisurely.

"Alright, twenty plus Seppies, humans, decked out in black tactical gear, black helmets and armed with A280's," Myec ordered, and they all stored that information, "Let's break these guys."

Myec led the way down, carefully watching the muck and filth of this spaceport's halls for boobytraps of any kind. But he was starting to see evidence of a fight, carbon scoring and bodies of local hired guns. They'd gotten taken by surprise and forced back, suffering heavy casualties, but as he and his squad continued moving they could see that the battle had ended, the hired help had lit off, through with getting murdered by a clearly superior foe. They made it to their destination of choice, a balcony that gave open access to the lively and bright city beyond the spaceport and surrounding it with skylanes of traffic and the lights of the skyscrapers and advertisements streaming along holographic projections along the durasteel and glass of the cityscape.

"Cables," Myec whispered in a single word and each of the operators attached a strong ascension cable to the metal railing and started to summit it. Their droids were right behind them, hovering protectively near them in a perimeter.

Their armor was moving on them perfectly, without a noise or shuffle, and they started to move down, suspended by their cables as speeders zoomed by below them and out away from the fifty-foot building a mere twenty meters away. They could tell how they were going to get in, their checkpoint markers were firmly set right below them, and growing closer. Myec was the first to reach the appropriate point and magnetized his hand and knee to the side of the building, and signaled for explosives to be planted. Two men started to pass along thin black explosive blocks meant for breaching walls and attached concussion charges on the corners of the ten by ten square hole that they intended to blow into the building's wall.

"Charges set," the squad lieutenant whispered.

"QRF is five mikes out, breach in five sierra, go."

The squad leader nodded and hit the countdown timer and the team positioned themselves. Two buddy teams positioned with two short-barreled DLT-18 Repeating Blasters ready to swing in to breach and clear with their built-in jetpacks ready to be utilized to thrust themselves inside and detach from their cables and enter the building with extreme speed and violence. To emphasize that the men below the repeater gunners had flash bang grenades primed and ready, and another man had already primed a cylindrical EMP charge to be tossed in to black out the lights and droids at the same time.

Then the charges exploded violently, blowing open a gaping square hole in the building into which two flash bangs were thrown followed by an EMP charge. The loud explosion of the breach was still ringing in the ears of the Caridans when the flash bangs exploded and the EMP killed all lights. Then blue blaster fire poured in through the smoke as the Caridans switched to thermal optics on their helmets to see through the dust. The swarm of droids now worked their way into a swarm mode, and dove inside, and flurry of blue laser fire lit up the dust. The first men through were the gunners, button-hooking inside and followed from below by their rifle-toting comrades, guns ablazing.

Four of the Separatist strike team were killed almost instantaneously, they hadn't been prepared and the flash bangs had done a number on them and the small swarm of droids flowing inside was not exactly a good thing to face. The Caridans smashed their way in, and streamed inside with blasters leveled and armor facing them wearing their softer tactical gear. The droids were having a ball, swarming in the air and firing, but then something happened, an enemy popped off an EMP Charge of their own and their droid swarm dropped out of the air.

"That isn't good," one of the Caridans called out.

"Can't trust droids to work when you want 'em to."

Myec was the next pair to go in, jetting up and sprinting inside and leapt over the railing that they were on to land on the ground floor. Here there was no dust and he was able to see something surprising, these individuals were taking them on already, raising their blasters tight to their shoulders and ready to face off in a straight-up brawl. He aimed and fired as a pair of enemy troops moved towards him, firing disciplined aimed shots at he and his battle buddy and dropped one of them who just went down as if he'd tripped and fainted at once and saw the name-tag for his comrade behind him go to red as the Seppie operator that was left fired a double tap into the Caridan's chest.

But Myec fired another burst and the black-clothed enemy went down. He turned right at the sound of a door opening and fired at another black-clothed hostile and killed him after pumping as many as six shots into his chest as he breached out of a door. The reason he got hit so many times was that the hostile behind him was so close behind he landed on top of him and was held up. But he too got hit as the body dropped and was followed by third who fired at Myec rapidly but got nailed through the head by another Caridan dropping to the ground floor to his assistance.

A major shootout was underway now, disciplined operators shifting positions forward and side to side. Cover was plentiful here, and the Caridans and their enemy made ready use of it. The computers and their monitors were wrecked almost immediately, and anything that was left was destroyed by a thermal detonator thrown by a Caridan, catching three hostiles in the fiery blast.

"More in the sidehall sir!" the Caridan next to Myec alerted him.

"Got you covered go!" Myec said and leveled his blaster, firing into the dark hall where he saw several enemy moving towards the firefight.

The commando next to sprinted to the door, firing as well but when he got to it an A280 was leveled at him from just within the door and the blaster was fired into the man's head, killing him instantly. The Caridan dropped with a sharp clatter onto the floor onto his side, rifle still held loosely in his hand. But the hostile who'd killed him acted with sheer speed and training in violence of action.

Myec didn't even have time to call out 'man down' as the hostile breached inside and Myec was already moving towards him. They inevitably clashed in hand-to-hand fighting as Myec gripped his rifle upright and swatted the opposing A280 away as it fired with a burst of red right by his head and he immediately tried batting the rifle butt into his opponent's masked face. But the all-black uniformed man he was facing was part of a group that was unlike any opponent the Caridan Commandoes had ever faced. At this close range Myec saw they had armor plates on their shoulders, back, and chest as well their shins, and their helmets were a new variant, smooth and matte black covering their head like a balaclava with a thin red visor glowing slightly. He saw the CIS patch on his arm, and also saw the unmistakable symbol of the Nimbus Commandoes, a very reliable past ally in counter-piracy and counter-terrorism in the outer rim. Now war had made them enemies.

Myec swung his rifle up to club the Nimbus Commado facing him but the man ducked under it, grabbing the rifle and swinging his own body weight to throw Myec up and over his shoulder and pinned him down to the ground with his own rifle against his neck. Both men tried to draw their pistols, but neither was as fast as Myec's back-up, his own wounded battle buddy, Lieutenant Droo who was now holding his wounded side with one hand and holding his SSK-7 in the other, stumbling towards him. The Jabiimi operator dropped back and Myec gasped slightly at the release of the pressure against his windpipe. But Lieutenant Droo stumbled into the firing line of the hallway where several enemy combatants were still in, and a dozen red blaster bolts punched into him and he stumbled back and fell against the side of the row of computers and went limp.

"Man down!" Myec yelled out, rolling onto his side and managed to peek into the adjacent hall to catch another pair of Nimbus in the open, and hit the first with a shot the caught the man above the sternum at the base of neck and then fired again as he went down managed hit the second man in the arm as he switched down to fire at him.

Scrambling to his feet Myec knew that he had the flank of his team, and had to cover it. He heard the stomping of boots coming towards the room and turned with his blaster pistol in-hand and fired into one of the enemy who was there practically in the doorway, dropping his opponent with a wounding shot to the shoulder as his stance protected his center mass. There was another enemy behind him, who reached out and grasped the pistol with his right hand twisting it down and away bringing his knee into Myec's wrist dislodging the weapon and threw a vicious left elbow into Myec's helmet and followed with another right that Myec ducked under, grabbing the man's vest with his right hand and beltloop with his left and flawlessly kneed the commando in the gut and then pulled him forward and kicked his legs out from under him with his right leg and pulled his rifle up still buckled to his chest and fired into the man's back before he got up off of the ground. Then he heard a metallic bang noise next to him.

The lead Caridan had to roll, using his jetpack thrusters to get him on his feet as a grenade landed inside the doorway and ducked down behind a table that got thrown onto its side. The explosion didn't effect him from behind cover and he lifted himself up and charged the door, firing from his Viper Grenade Launcher and seemingly shattered the will of the enemy trying to breach at him and his team's flank. This seemed to really set a new tone, and the Nimbus Commandoes engaging his other fireteams started to break away, laying down covering fire and retreating through other doors in the back of the warehouse as Myec looked down the hall to see that the enemy was indeed falling back.

"Dagger-6, Dagger-5, we are thirty sierra from boots on the ground, what is your status over?" he heard his XO call out on the comms.

"Dagger-5, Dagger-6, we've got three KIA, two more wounded, the safe house is destroyed I say again safe house is destroyed, need medivac over."

"Copy that six, we're almost there. Have got eyes on shuttles departing the space port, make them out to be enemy over."

"Roger Dagger-5, that do not pursue. Secure the port, hold your positions. Hostiles are Nimbus Commandoes, I say again Nimbus Commandoes."

"Say again Dagger-6, Nimbus Commandoes?" his XO snapped.

"Affirm. Do not pursue and remain in cover, they'll have snipers all over the area."

"Sir, these're Nimbus!" one of the sergeants called out, genuinely startled and more than a little enraged as he kneeled next to a body of a fallen operator.

"I know," Myec replied and then saw a flash of red out of the blasted-open hole they'd made in the wall and dropped behind the cover of the computers, "Sniper! Just as I said…friggin' Nimbus."

"Looks like we've got ourselves a real fight this time," the squad leader said in reply.

"Yeah, I guess droids were just too kriffing easy."

This was a helluva scene, actually two of them. I tried to find some movie footage of what an even fight pitting seasoned operators against one another would like but I didn't, so I had to figure this out sorta on my own. It turned out better than I thought actually, and hopefully. I can get the next one out soon, I figured out what I can with this setting, a Star Wars version of Stalingrad!

So that's the plan, we'll see how it works out.

Next Chapter Preview: The Battle of Bandomeer has begun.