Sixty Eight
Fives could barely see in front of him, the water as dark as ink. The fact that he had landed in the middle of the night didn't help. He stopped swimming for a moment and waited for the helmet sensors to adjust and illuminate a small area in front of him. He heard the suit begin to hum gently, the temperature control sensor automatically activating to compensate for the cooler conditions.
He began to swim.
The ARC had to time this mission to perfection.
If the drop zone coordinates were correct, he had a 30 minute swim to the underwater base then he had to find the main control housing and tap into the computer communications mainframe. For this part of the mission he had allowed himself approximately four hours, with a contingency of one. He would have to download the files slowly so as not to alert the Sep's firewall. After that, he would swim the entire base, carefully placing underwater detonation devises that would be activated once he was safe inside the larty. Placing of the bombs would take another two hours, and that left him with a one hour window to sit dirt side, dry out and wait for his brothers to come and collect him.
Fives looked around at the large underwater foliage when he noticed something flash, obviously metallic, and using the giant plants as camouflage, hid behind and waited. He watched as the aqua droid patrol swam past, their feet swirling, propelling them through the water effortlessly.
He checked the coordinates again and smiled wryly.
'Thanks for the directions boys,' he thought as he waited until they were a safe distance away before he followed.
The Republic had intelligence that a separatist communications base had been built under the murky waters of Casparar. Someone inside the Senate was transferring credits, and a source, who had mysteriously died, had discovered the illicit transactions. Fives' mission was to tap into the computer mainframe, quickly download as much information as he could, before laying enough dets to cause a tsunami large enough to surf all the way back to Coruscant.
He kept close to the foliage. Fives had read the spec on Casparar and knew that there were all sorts of large, meat eating creatures that lived in the icy conditions. It was a perfect planet for the Separatists. No one in their right mind would want to swim these waters and the droids, well, no animal in their right mind would want to eat one.
It was a perfect symbiotic existence.
Until now.
He watched the droids swim up to a small entrance then disappear. Fives knew that would be one of the many ways into the base and potentially his one way out if he couldn't get retrieve the data externally. He shot a small buoy marker into the sandy ground beneath him and made his way towards the buildings grey exterior.
He was already ahead of his schedule thanks to the escort.
Fives swam quickly towards the eastern perimeter when he felt something brush his leg, stopping him dead in the water.
Unbeknownst to the ARC, the buoy had been shot into one of the largest demersal fish know on Casparar, and it didn't appreciate the sharp wake up call.
Like a flash, the trooper was blindsided.
Fives lost the grip on his weapon, quickly trying to regain his bearings and pull on the cord it was attached too, and reel it back in. The fish then took off, swimming fast with the scrambling clone secure in its mouth.
'Fek!'
The ARC continued to try and stabilise himself and get a look at what had captured him, his abs screaming as he pushed hard against the current the fish was generating to finally get a glimpse of the creature.
He instantly recognised the brown scales, and deduced he was in the hold of the Casparar Hagfish.
Their remarkable speed and agility second to none and this particular demersal liked to coat its prey in a toxic slime, one that would render it inedible to any other fish.
The mission just had its first variation, and he needed to regain control before his suit was compromised by the rows of razor sharp teeth just past the lips that held him firmly in place.
Fives stopped thrashing about and relaxing his body, lay heavy in the Hagfish's mouth.
This was a tactic that he had read about, it went against all his training to play dead, but he knew it was his only chance to get away. This type of fish liked its prey alive, and thinking it had a dead meal already in it's mouth, slowed to almost a stop when Fives struck.
Managing to move his hand to his utility belt the ARC removed his small thin hydro screw driver and waited for its grip to lessen before he went for one protruding eye.
He stabbed repeatedly; frantically, his lungs burning with the extreme physical exertion. The Hagfish responded accordingly, releasing him and heading back to the security of the sea floor in fear and in pain.
Fives activated the jet propulsion on his greaves and set off at a blistering pace, his heart pumping hard in his ears.
'Twenty six! Twenty fekking six, you fekking piece of osik fish!'
He continued until he felt he was at a safe distance, before he slowed down and dared to look behind him. He was aware that, even in the dark waters, he was out in the open, the ubiquitous white suit standing out like a set of proverbials.
Fives looked around and headed towards a large underwater boulder and allowed his helmet to scan for any life forms.
"where by an ARC reaches and survives thirty concurrent missions or the War ends, he will have the choice to be transferred to Kamino to become an instructor to new recruits or he can choose to be retired from the Army permanently."
Three times, he had to repeat it three times before he could even think of moving forward. He could say it so fast now, the words would sometimes blur into one another.
It didn't matter, he just had to say it.
Three times.
Fives looked at his chrono, he was still on track and resetting the coordinates, began to swim, albeit more cautiously this time, back towards his initial destination.
There was no way around it; the attack had surprised him.
He was used to being shot by metallic soldiers, but this, this was something he would never get used to.
The Kaminoan's had thrown all sorts of permutations and combinations of Separatist related attack scenarios. But when it came to other off world creatures, it was just up to the individual soldier's flash training and ingenuity.
That's why he was there, he was an ARC after all.
Locating the communications hub of the underwater base, Fives reached for the gear to access the Seps data while still underwater.
He steadied himself and thought through the process of establishing and underwater Terabyte connection to the comms port located behind the bulkhead.
He would need to set up an electrostatic titanium data cradle, then attach the solid state micro M.A.S.E.R. to the porthole window. Using the LASER rangefinder, he would then dial in the exact range and direction to point the M.A.S.E.R at the comms port.
Downloading Terabytes of data at this range required exact precision.
Also, the seal against the crystal glass porthole needed to be watertight to ensure no data transmission errors.
Fek!
It was harder than he anticipated, his hands still a little shaky from the encounter with the Hagfish.
Fives cursed and thought of the tech geeks back on Corrie that supplied the gear and wished he dragged one of their sorry shebs along to see how they would perform under pressure.
He initiated the M.A.S.E.R and retrieved the access code from his aqua chrono data bank.
This is where it got tricky.
He hoped that the code that he had been given by HQ was correct and that he wouldn't set off internal Sep alarms.
'Here goes nothing,' he mused as he punched the numbers in and hit the flashing connect key.
Then he waited.
'Come on, come on,' he urged. Fives held his breath the entire time until the display message scrolled across the M.A.S.E.R control screen in front of him – 'data receiving.'
He then paired the comms connection to his HUD so he could view the data download status, safely hidden by the underwater foliage.
Two hours.
Three, then four.
He was beginning to get cold.
Fives had turned the suit down by half to preserve power after the initial drama with the Hagfish. With a couple of blinks he upped the temperature slightly. He had spent the time checking his oxygen levels and where he would lay the dets. He had also recalculated the time to the RV point four times. Fives allowed himself a moment to relax, and think of Tash, and her long blond hair.
He closed his eyes and imagined his face buried in it when his helmet beeped once.
Fives looked up to see a patrol of five aqua droids swim past and man the perimeter. He could take them out, that wasn't the issue, but he needed to be unseen and what now lay between him and twenty six were five wet tinnies.
He moved silently behind a rock to re-evaluate. All the data had been recovered, the light in his HUD had finished blinking and all he wanted most, was to get the dets laid and get the kriff out of there.
So he waited.
Five hours and waiting, still waiting.
He had the information, but only half his mission was completed. The idea was to get out inconspicuously then blow the base sky high.
They were his orders and he needed to complete them to the fullest.
He faced a conundrum.
Blowing the base was the easy part. The awaiting Republic Star Destroyer could break orbit and send in air to land missiles but if Fives broke radio silence, the Seps would be alerted and change their codes and then the information he had retrieved would be worthless.
Then the feeling that sent his face prickling with realisation.
Concurrent missions.
He couldn't go back to one now, not being so close.
Everything depended on this moment.
Everything he had been through.
Tash, Echo; he owed them to finish.
Fek, he owed himself.
He scanned the immediate area. The aqua droids had set a perimeter up against the eastern wall of the facility. Swimming quickly he placed six detonation devices along the southern aspect.
Fives hesitated and checked his O2 level. He was down to 23% and had forty two minutes left on the clock.
Kriff.
The one benefit was that this structure was well camouflaged and using it to its full advantage, he continued to swim, completely hidden.
The lack of any droids along the other perimeters made him instantly nervous. Fives knew he needed to get at least another seven dets attached to the structure to safely assume that the facility would blow.
Then he remembered.
The Hagfish!
It still had a score to settle and more importantly, an appetite to satisfy.
If he could get the injured creature to spook the droids, he could quickly lay the remaining dets and shimmy up to the surface, get picked up and set off the explosions all in, he checked his chrono again, thirty seven minutes.
He had no other choice and silently turning back on himself he headed to the area where he last saw the demersal bury itself, injured and licking its wounds.
Fives saw the small tell tale sand particles raise slightly and knew it was there, waiting for its next meal.
He turned his deece onto stun and set off a small blast at the tip. Again the creature sprung from nowhere in a flurry of sand but this time, the soldier was ready for it. Using his 360 degree HUD to watch the angry animal come at him, they sped through the murky water and Fives watched with a hint of amusement at the aqua droid turn before he whizzed past and disappeared deep into the foliage. The demersal locked onto the now silver meal, and opened its mouth.
The droid wasn't fast enough to report in what he had seen, as the Hagfish captured it and sped towards the four remaining Sep soldiers. They scurried back inside the base at an alarming pace as the creature continued past them, a Republic screw driver still firmly embedded in it's right eye.
Fives had to move and fast, he was now down to 14% O2 and still had approximately 26 minutes to place the explosives and high tail it back to the RV point. He knew he could just make it if he used what remaining power he had left in the suit to propel him double time to the pickup point.
He worked like a man possessed.
.
"OK boys, we've been given the green light. Let's find ourselves some pretty boy ARC before he starts bellowing back to HQ how he was left out in the cold for more than minute."
The team, consisted of flight Lieutenant Hopper, Sergeant Two-One, colloquially known as Sarge, and two other troopers, Soup and Gator. They had been together for over four months now, a life time considering the longevity of most gun ship crews during a war.
.
Fives swam with fury to the surface, he knew exactly where they would be to pick him up and time was running out, along with his oxygen.
"where by an ARC reaches and survives thirty concurrent missions or the War ends, he will have the choice to be transferred to Kamino to become an instructor to new recruits or he can choose to be retired from the Army permanently."
It was the only thing that could get him to the top, fighting against the nausea that was rising in the pit of his empty stomach he continued to race against the odds.
The pilot hovered before placing the larty down beside the lake.
"Did we know this area was under ice?"
"That's a negative Sir," the trooper replied wearing a look of concern.
"Sergeant, get out there and check out the depth of that ice. Hopefully the ARC we are picking up isn't as thick as a Bantha's hide and has enough sense to move to a point more accessible to everyone."
"Copy that."
Fives could see daylight diffusing through the water, indicating he was almost at the top. He mentally stopped reciting his mantra.
He shouldn't have.
With a thud he reached the thick ice ceiling of the RV point. He checked the coordinates one more time.
'This can't be right?'
He scrambled along a little, tapping his gloved hand against the hard surface trying to ascertain how think the layer was.
It was impenetrable.
A red light started flashing in his HUD.
Oxygen levels at 1%.
He had less than two minutes of O2 remaining.
Fives began thumping the canopy holding him in when he saw the three figures in white. Frantically they began striking the packed ice with the butts of their decees, desperate to get to the trooper trapped below them. They kept banging away, moving a little with the ARC to see if there was a softer spot to break through.
The red light now flashing annoyingly.
He wouldn't make it.
Twenty six.
Fives blinked a few times to illuminate the helmet so the men could see him. He wanted to indicate to them to stop, and shaking his head they got the message. He knew that they had a finite window to get him out and they had breached it.
"Men, abort, I repeat we have to abort now!" The pilot was watching the men attempt to break through to no avail.
Time had beaten them all.
Their new orders took precedence.
"Sir," Gator yelled down the comm, "he's there, we just can't get to him." In desperation the sergeant turned his weapon around and began firing at the ice, followed by the other two. Fives watched as the blue beams pulsed above him, wishing for the first time that one would actually make contact.
"It's too late, we'll all be trapped here if we don't get clear, now move it!" The pilot was adamant.
He too was disappointed.
His mission also, a failure.
The men looked at Fives through the ice. One knelt down, and taking off his helmet and gauntlet placed his hand next to the ARC's face.
"I'm sorry," he mouthed and Fives nodded. The oxygen had all gone and he knew what would happen next.
His last words weren't the mantra he had relied on nor were his last thoughts of the woman he loved.
'Echo,' he said as he closed his eyes, not wanting to see anything other than his brother as he drifted slowly down in the water.
.
"Fek, we could have got to him," Sarge yelled at the lieutenant as they all jumped on board. He had flung his helmet hard on to the floor and watched as the other two removed theirs.
Gator just sat, defeated at what they couldn't finish.
The larty lifted off and silence descended, the air thick with disappointment.
The craft tilted and the order came though, loud and clear, "hang on!" They all knew that tone, and reached for anything to support them.
"Argh," Hopper yelled. "Fekking ARC's, more kriffing trouble than they're worth," he grunted as the engine began screaming. The bird swung around sharply on itself and with purpose the flight lieutenant crashed it hard onto the surface pitted with laser marks.
It cracked instantly, leaving a gaping hole the size of a man, ice bobbing innocently in the dark water.
"Quick, shoot a grappling hook down and get your bony shebs in there and pick him up. I am yet to lose a mission and I'm not letting my rep slip on a fekking ARC. Now move it!"
The men didn't need to be told twice.
The sarge, minus his helmet and a glove, fired the grappling cord from the winch located in the cargo hold. He then jumped off the platform into the icy water. Keeping his eye on the white inanimate man with outstretched arms, he reached around Fives and pulled him back up to the surface.
They pierced the water and were hauled on board, rolling into the cargo bay still together when the larty lifted off and sped to the awaiting Star Destroyer.
Soup took off the ARC's helmet and checked Fives vitals with the med scanner, the sergeant pushed him aside gruffly.
"Move that away. He needs CPR, we can see he's not fekking breathing."
He lowered his mouth over Fives and began blowing into it as Gator quickly removed the scuba armour. They began chest compression's, but nothing seemed to work.
Sarge then did something none of them had seen before. He sat on top of the ARC and began thumping at his chest.
"Don't just stand there! Get me a fekking stim!" He was handed a hypo from the med kit and proceeded to inject it directly into Fives' chest and waited. Another thump hard on the pectoral and then he placed two fingers under his neck.
"Come on, you lazy piece of osik! I'm not getting all wet for nothing. Breathe damn it, breathe!"
The stim had hit Fives' circulatory system and together with the thump, his heart reacted accordingly.
It had been given an order after all.
A gasp, followed by another.
"Come on, that's it soldier, keep going."
Finally his chest began to move up and down as his lungs regained their use.
"You got him Sarge, you got him!"
"No, we got him Soup, we got him," he said as he sat back on his heels, wet and exhausted.
.
Fives was transported to back to Coruscant. There was no fan fare or pageantry, just a med droid pushing his gurney back to the Infirmary. Into the vat and two days later he was awoken and washed before being placed on the ward along with three others.
None of them knew the importance of the man in the bed next to them.
None of them knew the significance of his last mission.
But he did.
A slow smile crossed his perfect jawline.
Twenty Six...
...and counting.
.