Along with amu (amu - mom) and ba'vodu (ba'vodu - uncle) Obi-Wan, I walk toward the map room where uncle Anakin is.
"Still here, Anakin?" amu (amu - mom) fusses. "When was the last time you slept?"
I swear, amu (amu - mom) can be as bad as Wish when someone doesn't tell him that they're hurt. Usually me. Then amu (amu - mom) becomes a mother tooka and I am the subject of said mothering.
"I'll sleep after we find General Grievous. Clone Intelligence spotted him in the Balmorra system, but that was weeks ago. Since then, he vanished."
"Well, maybe unlike you, uncle Anakin, he's getting some rest."
Artoo beeps, and Admiral Yularen comes up.
"Excuse me, Generals, Commander. Incoming transmission from Commanders Logan and Cody."
The sphere shaped map on the table flickers off, and a holo of buir (buir - dad) and ba'vodu (ba'vodu - uncle) Cody appears.
"Generals Kenobi, General Skywalker, Commander Skywalker."
"Cody. How goes the inspections?" ba'vodu (ba'vodu - uncle) Obi-Wan asks.
"The tracking station as Pastel is fully operational," buir (buir - dad) says. "Commander Cody, Captain Rex, and I are proceeding to the outpost in the Rishi system."
"Good," amu (amu - mom) says. "Report back once you've arrived."
"Copy that, General. Logan out."
Ba'vodu (ba'vodu - uncle) Cody nods, and the transmission ends.
Commander Logan's POV
Cody and I have finished coming the Generals, and ad'ika (ad'ika - little one) was there as well. No doubt another bout of insomnia out of fear of her visions. Ila will most likely give her a cup of mentha tea and she'll go straight to sleep. Though I have no doubt that she'll put up a fuss about sleeping. Leeda likes to say that as useful as her gift is, it gets tiring after a while. Her 'when you can't sleep because you see your aliit (aliit - family) die' was unspoken, but I heard it all the same.
All three of us get into our ship, and make our way to the Rishi Outpost. If I weren't with Cody and Rex, this would be a very boring trip. When we get close to the Outpost, Cody attempt to make contact.
"Rishi Outpost, this is Commander Cody. Do you copy?" When they don't he says, "Rishi Outpost, please respond." Finally, after Cody says, "Rishi Outpost, come in! Rishi Outpost, come in!" They pick up.
"Sorry, Commander. We're experiencing technical difficulties."
"This is the inspection team," Cody says.
"Inspection? Negative, negative. We do not require an inspection. Everything is fine here. Thank you."
"We'll be the judge of that," Cody says. "Prepare for our arrival."
"Roger, roger."
I speak up, "Something's not right here."
"Well, good luck," Cody says. "I'm voluntelling you, you're in charge of this one."
"Ni or'paguur meg 17 bajur gar meg." (Ni or'paguur meg 17 bajur gar meg - I hate that 17 taught you that)
"Voluntelling?" Rex asks.
"I've been volunteered by Cody, and told by him to do it."
"Ah, okay."
When we land, the three of us get off the ship. There isn't a deck officer in sight.
"This is not good," I say. "I don't see the deck officer anywhere. These boys are sloppy. There should always be an officer on duty."
We walk up to the doors, when they open, Rex says,
"I have a bad feeling about this."
"Welcome to Rishi, Commander. As you can see, the outpost is operating at peak efficiency. Thank you for visiting, and have a safe trip back."
"We need to inspect the base just the same," I say. Using the tone I use with Leeda when she's trying to do something that she isn't supposed to be doing.
"Uh, there is no need. Everything is fine and fully operational."
"Take us to the sergeant in command."
"Roger, roger."
Just then, a red flare comes bursting up from beyond the base. All three of us know right away what it is. It's a droid attack flare.
"A droid attack flare!" Rex says.
Then the pieces start to fall into place. The reluctance for an inspection. The missing deck officer. And the droid attack flare. I pull out my right DC-15, aim it at the head, and pull the trigger.
"Logan!" Rex and Cody shout. "What the heck are you doing?"
I kneel down and say, "Relax, vode." (vode - brothers) I pull off the helmet, and a beskar'ad (beskar'ad - droid) head is revealed. "Just as I thought. Looks like one of those new commando droids."
"That flare must have come from the survivors," Cody says.
Then shots start being fired at us. I think Leeda may have given us her ability to walk straight into trouble for this mission. We both get up and fire back at them. Heading backwards. But even when we hit them, all they do is bend backwards. Oh, how I wish a Jedi was here right now. They might have tough armor, but the only metal that can stand up against a lightsaber is beskar. (Beskar - Mandalorian metal)
"Agh! Those clankers have tough armor!" Cody yells.
"We're cut off!"
"Off the platform," I order as a detonator sails through the air. One of the times that I love being the oldest in the batch. I can order them around because I'm the highest ranking.
"Copy that," Rex and Cody both say.
It blows up our ship just as we jump off. This isn't good. We've used our ascension cables to get down off the platform. When we land, Rex says,
"Well that sure complicates things, Commanders."
"No worse than that time on Tibrin," I say.
"We had Jedi with us on Tibrin," Cody points out. "They helped."
We all stop as we see five figures emerge from the orange haze. They all have on trooper armor, but that doesn't mean they aren't droids.
"Hands above your heads!" I order. "Take your sun bonnets off." They stick their hands up in the air.
"Uh, Sir?" one of them asks.
"Take them off! Now!"
They remove their helmets, revealing five identical faces. Faces of my vode (vode - brothers). In this case, vod'ike (vod'ike - little brothers). Just as we all start to relax, a loud boom and a crashing sound comes from behind it. Being the one who is most used to Skywalker pranks, I move out of the way first, and turn around. I see a large eel, and Rex fires a shot to the eye. It falls, most likely dead. He kneels down next to the head and takes his bucket off. Cody and I remove ours as well.
"Nice shot," one of the shines says.
"The name's Rex. But you'll call me 'Captain' or 'sir'."
"Sir, yes, sir!" all of them repeat.
"I'm Commander Logan, this here is Commander Cody. I'm your new boss."
"My designation is Trooper 27-5555, sir."
"We call him Fives. I'm Hevy." Hevy gestures to the trooper on his right, "This is Echo," then to the trooper behind Echo, "Droidbait," then to the trooper behind Fives, "and CutUp."
Huh, Fives, Hevy, Echo, Droidbait, and CutUp. Droidbait's name is rather ironic, and perhaps a warning. I wonder what inspired such an unfortunate name.
"Where's your sergeant," I ask.
"Dead, sir," Echo says. "We're all that's left."
"Looks like we got ourselves a batch of shinies, Commanders."
"'Shinies', sir?" Echo asks.
"That's right," Rex says, "your armor. It's shiny and new, just like you."
Rex puts a handprint in eel blood on the right side of the cuirass.
"Sirs," CutUp says, "me and my batchers are trained and ready. We'll take back our post, shiny or not."
"There's hope for you yet, rookies."
We make our way up the cliff, avoiding the eel holes, even though the one I remember as CutUp does very nearly get eaten by one. Fives, I think, is the one who drives it off. Force, I hate when I can't tell them apart. That's why when we get new shines, they go and dye their hair or get tattoos or something. That way Kya and I can tell them apart.
While on the subject of Kya, I can't help but wonder how he's doing watching Leeda on a ship. Even sleep deprived, ner ad (ner ad - my kid) has a lot of energy. And since I have no doubt that Ileema got her to sleep last night, she's most likely full of energy today. I also have no doubt that when I get back, several, if not most, of the 345th troopers will have differently colored hair. Most likely purple. I just hope she doesn't set fire to anything. Again.
"Look sharp, rookies," I say, snapping myself out of my thoughts as we all reach the top. "As long as those tweezers occupy this post, our home planet of Kamino is at risk."
"But there's so many of them!" I think it's Droidbait who says that. Might have been Hevy though.
"Doesn't matter, kid," Cody says.
"We have to retake this base. So we will retake this base," Rex finishes.
"How do you propose we get through those blast doors, ori'vod?" Cody asks. (ori'vod - big brother)
"I have a few ideas. Rex probably won't like it though."
He groans as he understands what I'm implying. A Skywalker plan.
We get onto the platform, and I grab a droid head while the rest of them hide out of the way of a security holocamera. I walk up to the door pad, and the droid in charge asks,
"Unit 2-6, is that you?"
"Roger, roger."
"You sound strange. Is something wrong with your vocabulator?"
"Roger, roger."
"Take off your helmet. Let me see your faceplate."
"Roger, roger."
I hear whispering from the side where the others are hidden as I get down onto my knees.
"This is never going to work," Cody mumbles.
I hold up the droid head, and the head droid does something, because the blast doors open. I'll have to remember to thank Leeda for giving me the idea with on of her pranks. I believe that was one on General Windu. She'll know what I'm talking about.
By the time that the doors are open, I'm standing in front of them with my pistols out.
"Clones!"
"Roger, roger."
I fire a shot, then the others come in and finish off the other two droids.
"Right. Let's move," I say, starting to run.
When we reach the doors to the command center, one of the shinies comes up to me and asks, "Permission to take point, sir?"
"I'm always first, kid."
We run up into the command center and start blasting away. I'm definitely getting mothered after this. This is why I hate being injured. Or getting in fights without Ila there. She mothers me afterward. Though, she does the same thing to Leeda, so I'm not alone in it, at the very least.
One of the clankers nails one of the shinies, who I now recognize as Fives because one of his batch mates yells out his name. Thank you for that by the way.
"He's okay," Cody yells, "Focus on the battle."
I avoid shots from the beskar'ade (beskar'ade - droids) while also getting in a few shots of my own. One of the ones I shoot, loses his blaster, but jumps down with a kad (kad - saber/sword). Oh this day just got a whole lot worse. He manages to cut me with it, in between the pieces of my armor, but thankfully it's just on the arm. Not too serious of an injury. I go behind him, and pull his head off. Which works, finally.
"I got one!" one of the shinies yells.
"Sorry, Echo, I junked that one."
"Like hell you did!"
We all remove our buckets, and I sit down behind the command post. I look at my cut, and it doesn't look too bad. I'll still get fussed at though. I can practically hear it now. But I grab the bandages, bacta spray, and disinfectant that Wish insisted I carry, before spraying the disinfectant on the cut, then the bacta spray, both of which burn like fire, before tying the bandages over it.
"Not so tough now, are you, sparky?" one of the shinies asks.
Cody walks around to where I am, and looks at a monitor. He says, "Get to the window. It looks like we have more visitors."
I groan. I'm really gonna get chewed out for this one. We all run to the window, and Echo puts his helmet on to look through his HUD.
"It looks like a Separatist fleet!" he says.
"That's why they commandeered the outpost. They're mounting a full-scale invasion!" I say. "We have to warm command."
While the diagnostics are being run, I take a look at the other monitors. And I see a Jedi flyer land on the landing platform. The astromech in it isn't R2, R4, or R8, but I recognize it. It's the one that has been the newest project for Leeda to fix up. Which means that most likely, she came down here.
"Great," I say.
"Huh?" Rex asks.
I gesture to the monitor. He walks over to me and takes a look, before letting out a bark of laughter.
"Oh, I can't wait to tease Kya about this."
I look back around to the shinies, and they all just look confused. I turn my attention back to the flyer, and sure enough, Leeda's dark brown head pops up out of it.
"Cody, I'll be back in a minute. Rex'll explain it."
I leave the command center and walk down to the landing platform, leaving my bucket off. I watch from the feed of outside, as Leeda comes up to the door, and inputs her Jedi commander code that overrides the system. I cross my arms as the door opens. She's in front of the door, and looks sheepish.
"Young lady, care to explain why you're here?"
She laughs nervously, and says, "I had a vision last night, and the Force was telling me that you needed me, so I gave ba'vodu (ba'vodu - uncle) Kya the slip and flew down here with T7?"
"Are you asking me, or are you telling me?"
"Telling."
I sigh, and pinch the bridge of my nose. "All right, no use sending you back up. Come on, there are diagnostics to run. Since you're here, make yourself useful."
"Elek, buir." (Elek, buir - yes, dad)
We walk back to the command center, and Cody and Rex raise their eyebrows at her, but she just ignores them and walks over to the monitors.
Leeda Skywalker's POV
I ignore ba'vodu'e (ba'vodu'e - uncles) Cody and Rex and walk over to the monitors. By pressing just a few buttons I figure out what going on.
"The Seppies sabotaged the transmitter and hard-wired the all-clear signal. Even if I did it, it would still time time to repair. Which, is time we don't have. Also, I suggest looking out the window."
I turn around, and walk to the window. One of the shines says,
"Well, buddy, you always said you wanted to be in the front lines."
Droids march past my fighter, and as we watch ba'vodu Cody says, "We can't protect the outpost long against that army of clankers."
An idea dawns on me, and I grin. "Then we'll destroy the outpost instead."
"But our mission is to defend this facility at all costs, uh, sorry, I don't know who you are..."
I smile gently at the shiny. "No harm done, I haven't introduced myself. I'm Leeda Skywalker, and as important as your mission is, we have to warn the Republic about the invasion. I would send a message over my bond, but uh, I would be in more trouble for trying to help than I would be if I didn't. But the ships will take notice when the all-clear signal stops."
"That's right. When they stop receiving our beacon, they'll get the message something's wrong."
"I need every thermal detonator and any type of explosive in the inventory."
"It'll take more than a few thermal detonators to destroy this outpost, Leeda," ba'vodu (ba'vodu - uncle) Cody points out.
"We can use the L.T." one of the shinies suggests. "This moon freezes for over half the year. We use liquid Tibanna as fuel to heat the base."
"Liquid Tibanna," I murmur. "Highly explosive. Perfect! Let's bring those tanks here and prime the detonators. Bal gotal'ur ibic outpost solus ori'tracyn." (Bal gotal'ur ibic outpost solus ori'tracyn - And make this outpost one big fire)
I go with the shinies to get the L.T. They introduce themselves as Fives, Echo, Hevy, CutUp, and Droidbait. Fives has a tattoo of a five on his temple, Hevy has a tattoo on his neck of a Z-6 rotary canon, Echo has a blue handprint on his cuirass, but CutUp and Droidbait are physically indistinguishable from each other. I have to rely on their Force signatures to tell them apart.
"How do you know Mando'a?" Fives asks me. (Mando'a - language of the Mandalorians)
"Buir (buir - dad) taught me when I was little. So did my ba'vodu'e (ba'vodu'e - uncles), ba'vodu'e (ba'vodu'e - uncles) Rex and Cody taught me a lot of it."
"Wait, your buir (buir - dad) is Commander Logan?" Echo asks.
"Lek (lek - yeah), not officially though."
They nod, and we get the L.T. and the detonators. Oh, they have a lot of explosives. I kind of wish I could take some with me, but buir (buir - dad) and amu (amu - mom) would find out, then I would get into even more trouble. So it wouldn't be worth it.
I lift a lot of the stuff, not physically, just using the Force to levitate it up to the command center. When we get there, buir (buir - dad) and ba'vodu'e (ba'vodu'e - uncles) Cody and Rex have us all circle up. Oh joy, pep talk.
"All right," buir (buir - dad) starts, "listen up. There's only one target of interest in the sector: Kamino. It's the closest thing most of us clones have to a home. Today, we all fight for more than the Republic. Today, we fight for our brothers back home. Understood?"
"Sir, yes, sir!" the squad yells.
Under my breath, all I whisper is, "Oya." (Oya - let's hunt)
Buir (buir - dad), ba'vodu'e (ba'vodu'e - uncles) Rex and Cody, and the shinies all grab their helmets. I take my lightsaber off my belt, and toss it in my hand. We might need to even the odds a bit, and even if we don't, a lightsaber also doubles as a very, very fancy glow stick. Whatever works. I go with ba'vodu (ba'vodu - uncle) Cody, Hevy, and CutUp into the armory to get weapons for the others. I don't need one since I did have the sense to get my lightsaber.
Even so, I'm not half bad with a blaster. At least, that's what ba'vodu (ba'vodu - uncle) Wolffe says, but he and buir (buir - dad) are the ones who trained me to shoot, so I shouldn't be horrible. And the Force does help a good bit with long range shots.
"I think we can even the odds a bit, Commanders, especially since they don't know we're here," Hevy says. Then he picks up a Z-6. "This one here is mine."
"A big gun doesn't make a big man," ba'vodu (ba'vodu - uncle) Cody says.
When the droids get to the door, Hevy is waiting.
"You didn't say 'please'," he says.
"Clones! Get them!"
Not just clones, clanker. A Jedi too. Albiet, a Jedi padawan, but I'm not useless. It's a whole firefight, my instructions were to hide for two minutes, element of surprise, then jump out. Well, it's been two minutes. So I jump out, over the heads of buir (buir - dad), ba'vodu (ba'vodu - uncle) Cody, and two of the shinies. Igniting my lightsaber as I flip. The purple blade stands out amongst the flame from a detonator thrown by buir (buir - dad). As soon as I land, the blaster fire is aimed for me. Being a Jedi and all that.
Falling back on my training, I move my lightsaber to block the shots reflecting them back at the battle droids and helping to take them down. After a couple of minutes, we walk back into the building and ba'vodu closes the blast doors.
Soon though, the battle droids manage to get the blast doors open. I really hope ba'vodu (ba'vodu - uncle) Rex and the other three shinies managed to get the explosives working.
"Fall back to the op center! Move!" ba'vodu (ba'vodu - uncle) Cody shouts. Hevy and I cover the other two while they get back, before going back ourselves.
"Ba'vodu (ba'vodu - uncle) Rex," I say into my comm, "Time's wasting!"
"Almost ready."
We run up into the command center, and it looks like ba'vodu (ba'vodu - uncle) Rex is having trouble with the handset for the detonators. Thankfully for us, I'm good with explosives. So I run over to him and kneel down. He hands me the handset, and I start working. Aha! Found the problem. The handset isn't set up to link with more than two detonators. We have ten set up.
I quickly go to the programming of the handset and change some of the code, as quickly as I can, then I go back out to link it to the detonators, and... it links up!
"Yes!" I mutter. "Detonators are hooked up. And I'm pretty sure none of us want to be fried, so I suggest we leave."
"Good idea," ba'vodu (ba'vodu - uncle) Rex says.
We all run over to the grate in the wall, I have the handset to the detonators, so I go down second, after buir (buir - dad). As soon as I land, I comm T7.
"T7, I'm good, fly the fighter back to the ship. If you run into amu (amu - mom), tell her I'm fine."
I get a few beeps on the other end, and soon enough, I see my fighter rise up into the sky, and zoom away. Once CutUp is down, I start counting down in my head. 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... As soon as I reach one, I press the button to detonate. It works perfectly, and the base is now a ball of fire, pretty much.
As we watch the base burn, I spot LAATs coming to pick us up. I can sense amu's (amu -mom) Force presence on one of them and I edge around to hide behind buir (buir - dad). When the gunships land, amu is the first to step off. She walks over to buir (buir - dad) and I, and raises her eyebrow. Buir (buir - dad) takes his helmet off, and smiles at her.
Amu (amu - mom) smiles back at him, but glares at me a little. I shrink away from it with a sheepish grin.
"Ila, don't be too hard on ad'ika (ad'ika - little one). If it weren't for her idea to blow up the base and her knowledge of coding and tech, not all of us would be alive."
Amu (amu - mom) looks slightly confused, but says, "Let's get back to the ship. Then you can both tell me what happened."
On the gunship, we all stand in silence. Once we're back aboard the The Relentless, amu (amu - dad) takes buir (buir - dad) and I into her and buir's (buir - dad) room. She sits on their bed and asks,
"What happened? Logan, you first."
"We went to Rishi, like we planned, but the Seppies had taken over the base by the time we got there. We met up with the new shinies that Rex has claimed, and took back the base. That was when Leeda showed up. When she started looking around in the system, she figured out what was wrong in about a minute. We had been working on it for a while. We didn't have the time to de-program the all clear signal, so she came up with the idea to destroy the base. When Rex couldn't get the handset for the detonators to work, she managed to fix it. I'm not any happier than you about the fact that she cam down there, but I do know that without her, at least one of us wouldn't have made it out."
Amu (amu - mom) nods, then looks at me.
"I had a vision that told me buir (buir - dad) needed me, so as soon as I could give ba'vodu (ba'vodu - uncle) Kya the slip, I did and flew down there. I guess everything happened the same way buir (buir - dad) said it did. I'm pretty sure that someone would have figured out what was wrong and how to fix it, but I felt like I was needed, so I went."
Amu (amu - mom) gives me a half smile. "All right. You won't get in trouble. But next time something like this happens, tell me when you have a vision like that."
"Elek, amu." (Elek - yes, amu - mom)
"Jate (jate - good). Now, both of you come over here. I was worried about you."
Buir (buir - dad) and I both walk over to amu (amu - mom). And after buir (buir - dad) takes off his armor, since both amu (amu - mom) and I find it uncomfortable to lay on, we end up in a cuddle pile on the bed. Just like we used to do when I was younger after they would get back to Coruscant.
"The best confidence builder is experience" -Unknown
A/N: And... Domino Squad lives! I know, I know, it isn't canon, but I'm a sucker for happy endings, and I love Domino Squad. So I couldn't resist. And boohoo, if you don't like it... I WILL FIGHT YOU! Besides, this is my fan fiction... and thus... I CAN DO WHATEVER I WANT! Mwahahahaha! *flings arms open dramatically during evil laugh* *clears throat* Now, where was I? Yes, enjoy. Bye!