(If you skipped my first RC fanfic, all you need to know is that there is an OC squad member who is also a Toydarian merchant called Tabura.)

"Rargh!" shrieked the last Geonosian diving towards Boss and Sev.

BBZZ cracked Sev's DC-17 hand blaster pistol as the insectoid soldier fell to the ground with a sickening thud. With the death of the last soldier in the facility, Delta squad had finally completed their mission. After several hours of trudging through an abandoned sewer and the seemingly endless firefights, the squad were exhausted and happy to finish their mission. Boss and Sev returned to the LAAT gunship where Tabura and Delta 42 were waiting to extract them. Fixer and Scorch both limped from the other entrance covered in plasma burns .

"What happened to you two?" Tabura asked as she noticed small cracks in their armor.

"A squad of Super Battle droids ambushed us." Scorch explained.

"You guys okay?" After hearing this question, it was clear they were more irritated than hurt.

"The Schematics are downloaded, and the consoles disabled. We're fine, despite Six-Two leaving me for dead." spat Fixer. Scorch threw his hands in the air in frustration at his injured squad mate.

"Fixer, I'm not the one who tripped the alarm and took his sweet time slicing the computer! You told me 'Six-Two start running'!"

"I said the system had started running! Boss, can I request a transfer to a different squad?"

"I completely agree Boss, let's replace Fixer with that guy with no arms, I'm sure he'll be just as effective." Boss turned towards the two squabbling soldiers who looked as though they were about to come to blows.

"That's enough you two! We've had a long mission, let's just get back to the prosecutor and rest."

"Fine." They both said.

The squad were silent as they packed away their equipment and got ready to take off. As Fixer sat next to Boss, he muttered "If I was a squad leader, I wouldn't have to put up with this crap."

Scorch overheard and retorted "Oh, because a different coloured armour will make you any less of an inefficient slicing dickhead?" This was the last straw as Fixer leapt out of his seat before being quickly held back by Boss. The rest of the squad reacted with a mix of surprise and intrigue. "Whoa!" "Never seen Fixer get that angry." "Didn't know Scorch could be that savage."

"Scorch apologise now!" Tabura ordered.

Scorch half-heartedly apologised. They hadn't even left the planet yet and they were still fighting.

Despite the tension on the Gunship, Sev thought this was the best time to reveal his major news.

"Still using a DC-15s Boss?" he asked. The squad looked at him with confusion. The DC-15s was the standard issue blaster pistol for all commandos.

"Yeah, what else would I use?" he replied.

"I don't know perhaps one of these!" With that he revealed a blaster pistol much bulkier and clearly more powerful than a DC-15s.

Instead of awe and admiration, Boss responded bluntly. "Just to clarify Sev, are we playing 'My blaster is cooler than your blaster'?"

"I don't blame him Boss, that's a DC-17!" replied Scorch giving the joyful reaction Sev was expecting.

"DC-17 hand blaster." Corrected Fixer.

Delta 42 ceased take-off procedures to ask Sev further questions. "How did you even get that, I thought only Captains or higher could get it?"

"Normally yeah but commandos can take a weapons handling test." Sev turned to Boss who was clearly not interested. "I'm surprised you don't have one sir, unless you failed it?"

"Fail it? I didn't take the test."

"No shame in failing it Boss, I failed it first time." Sev admitted.

"Really? Was the little blaster too confusing for your little psycho brain? The curly bit is called the trigger." Retorted Boss in a condescending way

"All the best people pass second time."

"No they don't, the best people pass first time because they're the best at it!"

"Why didn't you pass it then?" Sev asked.

"I didn't take the test!"

"Well, if you want to take it, we got a weapons assessor on the prosecutor, he'll be there for the next week."

"How do you know that?" asked Scorch.

"He's also the sniper for Gamma squad. Sharpshooters stick together." Sev declared proudly whilst hitting his chest with his fist and doing a series of random hand gestures.

"Awesome! How long does it take?"

"Do an hour's training and then take the test. You can do it together; we'd all be approved by lunch time."

Boss rolled his eyes. "Sev, I am not spending an hour staring at a hand blaster while your psycho sniper friend points at it like an asshole."

Scorch shrugged his shoulders. "Wouldn't bother me, I'd wade through a dozen old sewers for a DC-17 hand blaster."

"Same here", "Me too", "And me" confirmed Fixer, 42 and Tabura, leaving Boss as the odd one out. Sev gave a smirk under his helmet.

"Then you better do the training because the handling test isn't a walk in the park." At this point Boss lost his patience. He hadn't slept in 16 hours, and he really didn't want to talk about hand blasters for the rest of the journey.

"Yes, it is! In fact, it's a walk In the park with a blaster! We are Republic Commandos: we are cloned from one of the greatest bounty hunters from Mandalore, we have had years of cutting-edge training and we've fought in the most brutal battles in galactic history. And what is the one thing we've been using every day for the past 2 months of the Clone Wars?"

Scorch slowly put his hand up. "…is it-"

"Blasters! We've used blasters!"

"I'm just saying, anyone can fail the test."

"And I'm just saying, drop it Sev! 42, take off!"

At this point everyone realised the gunship was still on the planet's surface and turned to Delta 42 who quickly turned back to his cockpit and set off.

/

Author notes:

DC-15s is the pistol in Republic Commando and is standard issue for commandos. DC-17 is used by higher ranking officers popularized by Captain Rex from the clone wars. I'm not a massive blaster nerd but basically the DC-17 is bulkier and more powerful.