Last chapter was definitely one that was off the cuff and the Republic is now going to occupy Mandalore. That's right, we're starting to go really off the walls now.
But first, there's something that I've been meaning to do for a while now and for the longest time there were a litany of ways I could do it but at long last I found my way.
This is a unique chapter, following the format of the Anthology like method in which the Clone Wars was presented which in turn allows for different stories to be told in different ways. Like the MCU even.`
There is a narrative and overarching plot line of course but it's the culmination of multiple different stories from multiple points of views. It's why I feel having the MCU version of the Avengers set in the time of the clone wars works so well.
So long as the eventual goal is in mind and set, there's many ways you can tell stories across this era.
And with that being said, you guys will probably easily see what inspired this chapter.
Rate Read and Review and as Always Have Nice Day.
Avengers Infinite Wars Chapter 41: Band Of Brothers Volume 1: Shinnies
It was strange in the beginning.
Gaining consciousness and learning of your purpose.
Being a soldier is all I ever knew. All weever knew.
You learned quickly just how tough your life was gonna be. We didn't care for it much to begin with really.
We had something to do.
We had a purpose.
The proud, fighting men of the Grand Army of the Republic.
That's what we were made for.
To fight and die for all we ever knew.
Seemed simple enough.
If only it were so.
Shinnies.
That's what we all started out as. A bunch of wide-eyed rookies that had no idea about the rest of the galaxy other than that it would one day be our battleground.
Kamino
Two Clone Troopers stood before an entire battalion of shinnies, all of whom were mixed together to form one of the many legions and divisions of the Grand Army of the Republic.
They were standing at attention, waiting for their CO/trainer to arrive.
There were a total of 50 clone brothers behind them.
"If you think that's the position of attention, you're all entirely wrong!" Yelled a human male clad in Mandalorian shock armor minus his helmet.
The Clones stood more rigidly now as the Mandalorian went about inspecting them with his keen eyes.
He was a Mandalorian in his late 30's with a gruffness to him that was clearly seen both with the faded scars on his face and battle hardened eyes. His skin was tanned with long hair being cut into a mohawk that ended in a braid that reached the bottom of his neck.
Eyes a sharp coal color with armor equally as dark.
This was Doren Veers. One of the one hundred members of the Cuy'val Dar chosen by the legendary Mandalorian Bounty Hunter Jango Fett in training the Clone Army of the Republic. War was coming to the galaxy and they were born and bred for the purpose of being the vanguards of this ancient establishment.
Out of the Cuy'val Dar, 75 of them were Mandalorians who had a long history of combat and battle prowess each being chosen for that reason by Fett. They would work with him in establishing one of the deadliest and greatest armies this galaxy would ever see.
The Clones all stood stock still as Doren gazed over them individually, stopping at the clone all the way to the left.
Doren gazed intensely at him with the clone twitching an eyebrow.
"Have you been pissing your britches over your boots like a newborn?" Doren asked condescendingly.
"No sir."
"Well you all had a pass for tomorrow, but now it's been revoked."
The Clone only nodded his head as Doren went on to the next clone trooper.
"Name?"
"CT-7342."
"7342, eh? Well judging by the way you're wearing your shoulder plates," Doren slapped both down into their proper positioning. "Might as well refer to you as private bullshit, no? Incompetent would be too long and polite. Anything to say to that, private bullshit?"
"No excuse sir."
"Thought as much." Doren went to the front of the company for a moment. He spotted a Clone in the right middle of the assembled troops and went right over to him.
"What's this Trooper?" Doren inquired, patting him at his empty rifle that was loaded.
"My loaded rifle sir."
"A loaded rifle in a training field with comrades around." Doren accentuated. "Do you want this thing to just go off and kill everyone here?"
"No sir."
"Are we supposed to expect an attack on the planet?"
"No sir."
"Thought so." Doren drawled. "Despite being born and bred here, you've got a long way to go to graduate in our standards, rookie."
The Mandalorian went over to his next Trooper/target.
Grabbing a clone's blaster, the Mandalorian inspected it before speaking. "Name?"
"CT-6820"
"There's grease in the rear side up aperture."
The Mandalorian shoved the blaster into the clone before moving onto a different one. He wandered all over, giving quick little inspections to see what was imperfected at this stage of their training.
"There's rust on the butt plate hinge spring." The Mando pointed out, throwing it back to the trooper of his inspection.
The next trooper over...
"What's this we have here?" Doren pulled out a small blade. "A combat knife? Not just anyone, a decent low tier vibro blade. Don't know where the fuck you got this but even I have to admit, I'm impressed Trooper. You keep this out in the rain all night?"
"No sir."
"Then it's a rusty piece of poodoo." Their trainer held it up high for all of the troopers to see. "I would not take this out to war, like the rest of you." Sheathing the knife, he shoved the weapon to the clone before looking towards the others present. "Because of these mistakes, whatever rest privileges you have for the next few days are revoked. We'll be using that time to make up for said mistakes with extra training."
He gave them a once over.
"Be ready to be deployed to Kamino's moon for a marathon run. Three miles up, three miles down. And this'll happen for every couple of hours, boys. Now move!"
With that, the present clones quickly disembarked to the shuttles to head towards the moon for further training.
It was a harsh area, remade for our training. Doren and several others of the Cuy'val Dar made sure our legion was always put through the ringer. Told us that Jango saw real potential with us but to be frank, never really saw it at the time.
Always felt like they just didn't like us.
The clones were running up a hill with Doren running right by them.
"What Legion is this?"
"BLUE COMPANY!"
"And what do you do?"
"WE GO IN FIRST AND LEAVE LAST!"
"Where do we stand?"
"ALONE!"
One clone tripped, causing some of the clones to slow down in wanting to help their brother up. Yet their trainer spotted this.
"Do not help him!" He ordered, running on ahead. "We do not stop!"
The Clone grit his teeth and forced himself to continue, trying everything to ignore the pain in his leg. He would not fail his brothers.
"Well, looks like we've got a tough one here boys." Doren said with a manic grin.
The Mando was the first to reach the top of the hill and held up his wrist gauntlet which had a timer on.
"We are coming up on 23 minutes." Doren announced as he watched the Clones begin to tap the pole setup that marked the top of the hill. "That may be good enough for most Clone Companies but that is not enough for Blue Company."
One of the Clones stopped and began encouraging his men.
"Come on brothers, keep at it." He said emphatically. "We're blue company, you can do it, come on. Come on boys, let's go. We did it last time and we can do it again this time!"
Doren gazed sideways at this clone and found himself smirking for a moment.
"Is that what you call running?" He shouted at a Clone whose arms slightly flailed. "You look like a Wookie who's lost his mother."
Doren Veers was a tough son of a bitch who cut not corners or shortcuts when training us.
He drilled us all to hell day in and day out.
The clones now all stood at a makeshift model of a ship with the intents of training for mass and quick deployments.
"Stand at the door and… jump." Doren ordered.
The first clone jumped out and landed cleanly on his feet.
"Good." Doren nodded. "Stand at the door and… jump."
This clone...
"Okay… you just broke both of your legs." Doren drawled out. "You planning on getting yourself killed?"
"Sir, no, sir!"
"Then get back in line and do it again."
It was insanity really.
We thought the simulations would be the be all end all for our training but when the Cuy'val Dar came into play when we reached the later years…
After our last run on the hill, Doren usually singled me out and drove me out the most out of everyone. I didn't understand why in the beginning. It never made any sense to me why he chose me.
Currently on Kamino's moon, Doren was addressing one of the clones while everyone else was doing personal training some distance away.
"Why are you here, CT-7567?"
"I was born and bred for this, sir."
"I repeat, why are you here?"
"I was born and bred for this, sir!"
Doren looked over yonder and pointed to a specific mountain. "You have less than an hour to reach the top of that peak and make it back down." CT-7567 didn't move at all, making the Mandalorian roll his eyes. "Are you waiting for something?"
This caused the clone to bolt from his spot, running in order to make up for the time he just wasted.
He ran alone, bolting up the hill as fast as his legs could carry him after a grueling day of training.
CT-7567 felt himself stumble yet he pressed on. He would not fail. Not for himself, nor his brothers.
His senses were primarily focused on the track ahead. It was about a quarter of the way up did CT-7567 finally notice the sounds of boots against gravel when he slowed down a little to give himself a little bit of rest. Glancing to his side, he noticed several of his brothers joining alongside him on this run towards the mountain peak.
Smiling underneath his helmet, the clone pushed himself harder.
"Think you boys could keep up?" The Clone challenged, beginning to run faster with the Clones who had caught up to him letting out exasperated sighs though they chuckled a moment later.
"We caught up to you just now, brother."
"Well, try again then." he challenged, running ahead of his brothers.
As time went on, our training grew harsher and rougher in accordance with the growing number of others that were beginning to get assigned to us directly.
Blue company was rapidly becoming one of the top running contenders of companies in the Clone army. There were others like orange and yellow along with green but blue was hell bent on being at the top.
Even with the occasional "defective" clone if one would call them that. Defective or not, they put their all into blue.
"And who the hell are you supposed to be, Trooper?"
"CT-4128."
"4128. I've heard a lot about you from the other trainers and even Kaminoans. Real Hardcase who had his tank leaking."
The Clone in question couldn't help but grin madly at this statement.
"Yeah, figured I needed some fresh air before I was sent out." The Clone said with unabashed pride.
Doren snorted. He couldn't deny this mad Clone had a sense of humor.
"Well fuck me silly, a clone who knows a joke."
"We're soldiers sir." 4128 said with pride. "Course we can joke around."
"Clearly." Veers remarked dryly. "You've got a lot of catching up to do in this company if you wanna stand shoulder to shoulder with the others, Rookie."
The Clone's grin only widened. "Catch up you say? Consider it done, sir."
"Whatever you say." Doren only gestured his head up making the trooper turn to see Blue Company running up the same hill they had done a thousand times over by this point.
"Start by catching up to them." Veers stated. "You have ten minutes."
The clone only pounded a fist over his chest once, as if hyping himself up before sprinting to catch up to Blue Company.
Days turned to weeks and weeks turned to years.
Wasn't long before we had two years of training under our helmets with us beginning to train more actively with simulations and firefights to give us a taste of battle.
That's when I began to realize why Doren singled me out more often than not.
On Imoco, an icy planet of the Kamino System, Blue Company was running a field op simulation. Their regiment against the Green Company.
Currently, they were all within a dug in trench that served as their staging ground of sorts for their assault on Green Company. It was a simple simulation of capturing their fortification.
They were all situated in positions that covered their blind spots.
CT-7567 was kneeling down with his blaster in hand and optics in the other.
"What are your orders, Lieutenant?" Doren asked, kneeling next to the clone.
"Sir?"
"I may be your commanding officer, but it'll be very clear to this company who is gonna be leading them on the field." Doren simply stated. "So, what are your orders?"
"May I see the map before I make one?"
A holomap was given the clone lieutenant. Activating it, CT-7567 looked it over and tried his best to triangulate their position.
"Has recon come back yet?"
The leading clone heard footsteps coming towards them. Looking over, he saw one of his brothers, who was assigned for reconnaissance, had finally come back.
"Report."
The recon clone whispered back in response, not wanting to give away their position. "We're in a textbook position of an ambush, sir."
The lieutenant processed this bit of information before giving out an order.
"You two, prepare some smoke for our cover." He said. "The five of you," 7567 pointed to another set. "Give us covering fire in the direction where we have the most group of enemies. The rest of you, form up behind me. Two lines."
With the Clones in position, 7567 stood at the front.
"I'll move out first." the Clone Lieutenant said, momentarily looking back to the Company. "Wait for the smoke to start popping out. Then follow."
With the Clones nodding, their Lieutenant leaned forward and after a few moments simply nodded.
Two canisters were thrown overhead and landed a few yards in front of him.
In an instant, the Lieutenant went up and out of the trench in a full on sprint. There was movement, all around him.
He could hear it.
Yet he pressed on.
No sooner did he jump over a small crevice did blaster fire begin to reign.
From all directions, behind small icy outcroppings to the smoke that was now beginning to grow behind him.
Blue Company was now charging straight out of the smoke towards their objective with several being shot down. Thankfully, due to the smoke and blaster fire coming from there, the opposing side was confused long enough for them to crossover with only a few casualties at most.
Rolling into cover, the Blue Company lieutenant quickly fired off several shots to the left before ducking back in order to fire towards the right. Some enemy combatants were already taken down before the lieutenant started to hear a large number of footsteps coming his way.
Looking back momentarily, he saw the rest of Blue Company right on his heels and he grinned. Looking back, he resumed firing upon the Clones that were a part of the enemy battalion with the rest of his battalion joining him.
Soon after, blaster fire reigned on Green Company.
Some had opted to remain standing while others either went down onto one knee or laid down flat on their stomachs while firing at the opposing Company.
They appeared to have the advantage for the time being until one Clone stopped firing when he saw a surprising sight.
"Oh great, we got another battalion coming here." the Clone that spotted them said with the aforementioned battalion going over in waves over the hill that obscured them from Blue Company.
"Where the hell did they come from?"
"Move back, don't let them overwhelm us." 7567 ordered with the company beginning to move back into more secure positions.
"Why didn't we know another regiment was taking part in this?"
"In war, there will always be unexpected, surprising variables which one needs to quickly account for and assess at a moment's notice." Lectured their trainer. "Be sure to remember that next time."
The training day concluded with a Blue Company victory though at the cost of half the team. They weren't dead of course but…
CT-7567 sat alone within the barracks of the Clone Army, hands resting on his knees with his head bent down.
"What's on your mind, trooper?"
7567 looked up to see Doren Veers standing before him with an expectant look.
"Sir?"
"Something is bothering you, clearly." Doren said as it was obvious to him. "Tell me. Is it today's training?"
The Clone flinched momentarily before his figure slumped a bit.
"Just… wasn't happy with the result, is all." the Clone stated with a somber tone.
"Oh? And why is that? Last I checked, you succeeded in your objective." The Mandalorian stated, casually looking over his gauntlet. "So, what's really bothering you?"
He did not respond at first, choosing instead to keep it to himself. But when he noticed the trainer had no intentions of leaving, the Clone Lieutenant knew he wouldn't leave until he spoke.
"I'm just disappointed in myself really." He admitted aloud. "I lost half the company today. Even if it was training. Should have been better prepared."
Doren only bobbed his head from side to side as if both agreeing and disagreeing with him.
"It was just a training simulation, Lieutenant." He said blandly. The Clone tensed up, not picking up on the subtle tone the Mandalorian had with the statement.
"I know, but still if it was real-"
"Not every victory comes without consequences and fallouts. You best learn that for the future." Doren cut him off. "We're not training you to resolve conflict with words but with blasters and war."
The Clone Lieutenant only nodded numbly.
"It was a training simulation, LT." Doren reminded him. "Don't take this as a loss. You haven't lost any soldiers or brothers. Learn from it. Learn from every loss and experience. It's what will teach you in knowing how to stay alive and keep your men alive with you."
The Clone looked up at the trainer and saw the seriousness in his expression. He nodded in appreciation at the Mandalorian with the bounty hunter simply nodding back.
"I expect great things from you, Captain." Doren stated. "So continue your training. They made you in charge of Blue Company for a reason."
7567 only nodded when he heard the rank that was used to address him.
"Sir? What do you mean Captain?"
"Oh right." Doren jokingly slapped the side of his head. "You didn't get the memo yet. Was supposed to be for tomorrow. Well, might as well tell ya. You're promoted, Captain 7567. Congratulations are in order."
The newly appointed clone captain could only stare in disbelief as the Mandalorian walked away, leaving the promoted soldier to sit there and reflect on today's training and the many more days to come.
Training went on and on. It felt like it would never end, making some of us wonder what the point of this was for if we weren't sent out to do what we were bred to do.
Of course, that all changed when Grand Master Yoda of the Jedi Order, representative of the Republic, arrived on Kamino in order to properly deploy us on our first official mission.
There was a great deal of commotion on top of excitement vibrating across the gigantic assembled fleet of the Republic during the trip over to Geonosis.
This was it.
This was what they have all been training for, for nearly ten years.
Getting to Geonosis was a cinch with little to no air support for the Confederacy.
They were lucky there were no orbital shielding. But this was made up for with the ground based orbital cannons shooting many of their drop ships from out of the sky.
From the ship he was on, the recently promoted captain of the Republic army could see so many of his brothers crash down in a fiery blaze. He gritted his teeth on the site but had to shove such feelings aside for what was going on now.
Suffice to say, our deployment was an utter mess. We were trained for combat. Running all sorts of simulations so we may all be ready. But none of us were prepared for us experiencing death for the first time. Hearing the bloody screams and witnessing the horrors were not anything we were ready for.
Our confrontation with the Geonosians and the droid army could've been better for us if we were properly prepared. All strategy was basically thrown out of the airlock, only becoming useful towards the climax. Until then, we were just throwing everything we had at the droids. Wasting ammo and men here and there.
But we persisted and we carried on. And in all honesty, I'm surprised most of us survived our first hour, let alone the first day.
LAAT gunships were landing in droves, constantly deploying either troops or tanks upon the battlefield.
It was a near endless swarm of both clones and droids as both sides were just literally throwing their forces against one another to see which side would win.
The plan was nothing short of a simple headlong charge straight into the enemy forces.
Clones were dropping all around him even though they were advancing.
The main objective was to target the droid factories and Geonosian core ships in the distance where all the droids kept flocking out of.
"MOVE MOVE!"
The Clone Captain roared aloud as multiple men in white armor charged forward with blasters up and firing at the seemingly endless wave of droids ahead of them.
He ran forward, grasping a Clone Brother who had been injured and was trying to find a means of getting him to a safe area.
If he could find one.
Getting next to an AT-TE, the Clone Captain and Private in his arm took a moment to lean against one of its legs as it hadn't moved.
Looking around desperately, the Clone private on his arm began shouting for the attention of other Clones when a blaster bolt struck him in the chest. He collapsed to the ground dead; his arm still gripped on his captain that dragged him down.
The Captain stared at his now dead comrade, hand resting on his chest before shaking his head and refocusing his attention on the battle.
All around him, clones were shouting while firing at the Droid army.
"MEDIC, WE NEED A MEDIC OVER HERE!"
"THEY'RE FLANKING US!"
"WATCH THOSE WRIST ROCKETS!"
An explosion beside him made the Clone Captains helmet momentarily come off when he harshly fell onto the ground. Ringing soon met his ears as everything else became inaudible. Looking around, the captain saw the chaos around him.
On one placement, a shiny was freaking out as he was trying to stay in cover. He flinched at a blaster bolt nearly striking him when a clone rushed over to him and grabbed him, pulling him away just as the spot he was hiding in blew up.
In another, a clone had his arm severely broken due to a blast he barely survived from. It was only with the suit alone was keeping the arm together instead of somewhere else. And lying some distance away was a trooper getting patched up by a medic as he was working as fast as he can under heavy fire.
The Captain looked over blearily at a downed, burning gunship. From the gunship, burning clones were escaping with some desperately rolling around in the sandy ground of the planet. Others merely began rapidly trying to get their armor off them as they burned.
CT-7567 gazed upward and spotted his helmet. He shakily grasped it and lifted it off the ground with sand mixed with some of his blood falling out of it.
Placing it back on, he barely registered how sticky and sandy the helmet was inside as he gazed at the clone head bobbing up and down in front of him. He could still barely hear anything yet the rumbling of explosions and passing blaster bolts were becoming clearer.
Seeing a few clones looking towards him, the captain realized they were trying to talk to him. Banging on his helmet a few times, he was finally able to get the radio to work again.
"-hell are we supposed to do now, sir!"
"Captain!" A clone with a blue arrow over his vizor shouted, waving at him. "Captain, over here!"
"Sergeant 1119? Get the men moving out of here." 7567 ordered.
"Where is our rallying point?!"
"Anywhere, but here."
"But sir-"
"If we stay here longer, we are all dead men. So keep pushing forward." 7567 barked out. "We're the ones that need to punch a hole for the others to make it through."
The Clone Captain raised his DC-17 blaster rifle and charged forward.
"You heard the Captain." Clone Sergeant-1119 yelled out. "Get on my ass and follow us."
The Clone Captain ran forward, blasting away at the oncoming droids. Out of the corner of his eyes, 7567 saw the long line of clones from other parts of the battlefield moving up the line against the droid army.
Gunships flew overhead, firing at anything and everything that was droid or associated with it.
Up ahead, he saw a down AT-TE with a bunch of clones using it as cover. Around them were several craters with other clones utilizing it as makeshift cover.
The Captain gestured for his company to take cover right now as he ran over to the group of clones behind the AT-TE.
"Who are you guys?" he asked straight away.
"504th, medical division." A clone answered, grasping communication equipment.
"Medical division? What the Kriffin Hell are you doing out here?"
"Try to set up field operations."
The Captain would have looked at him in disbelief had it not been for the situation at hand.
"Get rid of that crap." 7567 ordered. "Grab yourselves some weapons and prepare to follow me."
Over at what appeared to be a rocky outcropping, he saw a bunch more Clones with one crying out in pain while grasping his leg.
It was one of his own from Blue Company.
"Hold on, Corporal." 7567 rushed over to him.
"Captain." The Corporal Clone grasped his arm. "I'm hit. I'm hit low, God!"
"Medic!"
"Sir!" Another Clone from behind called to him. "3rd tank battalions. We need to clear these obstacles for our walkers!"
"What obstacles? The ones we're blowing away? Stop wasting time here and move. They'll get around it, it's an open field."
Grasping his Clone Corporal's arm, 7567 began to pull him towards the medical Clones not far off from him.
"Come on Corporal, let's get you the hell out of here."
He was dragging his brother across the barren land with blaster bolts and explosives going off all around him. The Corporal, while in pain, was doing his best to alleviate some of his weight by using his good leg in pushing himself off the ground.
*KABOOM*
Captain 7567 fell to the ground with his hands over his helmet for a brief moment before quickly standing back up. He turned to grab his corporal only to see that half of his body was gone.
He fell onto his elbow with his eyes wide before shaking himself out of his stupor and running to return to his company.
Soon as he got to the front, he motioned his arm with the troopers following after him.
Running up towards a large ridge, 7567 leaped into cover as he was met with several other brothers of his. Looking back, he saw one brother dragging another across the battlefield before an explosion went off, sending both flying. By the looks of it when it briefly settled, both were dead.
"Who's in command here?"
"You are, sir?"
The captain soon looked around and took note of the present numbers.
"Is this all that we have?"
"There's bound to be more of us, captain. We keep flowing in."
7567 looked around, gritting his teeth. They may be flowing in but right now that flow was way back there, not here. Not where they were needed most.
"This isn't enough. This isn't enough."
"We're running low on weapons and ammo, sir!"
Hearing this bit of detail from one of the nearby clones, the captain gave the only reasonable solution he had. "Then we'll have to take them from our fallen brothers."
Some of the clones looked at each other, silently agreeing it was the only usable option they had right now. The order was deployed, having a number of troopers fall back in order to retrieve the desired goods in order for them to proceed.
"Do we even have explosives on us?" Questioned the captain.
"Got a few grenades on me." Spoke one of the troopers.
"Got a charge with me." Said another.
"Okay, good. I can work with that." Muttered the captain. "I need the charge planted as high as you can on the enemy's position. We'll fire at it when ready. And the grenades will be used when the opportunity rises."
With the Clones having gathered weapons and ammo, they returned back to their company Captain.
"What are we looking at, sergeant?" 7567 inquired, raising his head over their cover.
"Nothing but droids as far as the eye could see Captain." 1119 answered. "But, see that Hailfire droid?"
Looking in the direction that his sergeant was pointing to, the Captain nodded.
"That's our main obstacle." He stated. "The others are not far behind and can easily break through their lines but…"
"That risks a lot of casualties in doing so." The Captain finished for him grimly.
Taking a moment to look around, the company of clones was somewhere above four or five dozen in total and while it would appear to be a strong battalion of Clones they were still severely outnumbered.
And the droids kept trudging on.
When the Captain was about to formulate a plan, the glint of a glowing blue blade being wielded by a lithe and athletic Twi'lek appeared before them.
"Holy Kriff." One of the Clones muttered, watching the one before them deflect blaster bolts left and right before retreating back towards the Clones who were in cover.
"A Jedi." Sergeant 1119 said in awe.
The Blue Twi'lek landed right next to the Clone Captain, her lightsaber still ignited as she deflected more blaster bolts.
"I'm Aayla Secura." She introduced herself. "How can I help?"
The Captain stared at the newly arrived jedi only for him to shake his head and refocus his attention on the battle at hand.
"That Hailfire tank droid." 7567 pointed to it. "That's our main threat. We take it out, giving us and the rest of the oncoming army a clearer shot at pushing through."
Aayla only nodded. "You'll have your opening."
"Blue Company get ready." 7567 called out to his men with all either nodding or calling back that they were prepared.
…
"NOW!"
Immediately, Clones poured out from their cover with the Jedi Knight Aayla Secura running right alongside them as they rushed towards the Hailfire droid that turned around to face them.
"Grenades." The Captain shouted, several clones unclipping thermal detonators and tossing them at the Hailfire droid. Some fell before it, blowing up without causing much damage. Several, however, either stuck onto its missiles or on one of its red optics.
The explosions were loud and bright yet it only appeared to damage the droid. It was still standing… though not for long.
Aayla Secura surged ahead of them, Lightsaber being held to her side diagonally above the ground.
She crouched down before jumping forward with an amazing display of athleticism and grace. As she sailed overhead of the Hailfire droids center mass, she stabbed her lightsaber through its head and slashed right through it.
Landing behind it, she glanced over her shoulder to see it blow up entirely with Clones roaring in approval.
"We have our entryway." The Captain yelled out, waving at any and all clones close to him. "We're in business, through here."
"Sir, Spider-walkers!" a clone shouted, pointing up to the large four legged circular spider droid that was walking its way in their direction.
Gritting his teeth, the Captain was about to call out for rocket launchers when the Spider-walkers promptly blew up.
Blinking, the confusion turned to cheers at the sight of LAAT gunships flying past them with the gunships unleashing their torpedoes and fire against the droid army.
"Push forward!" 7567 yelled, running forward at full speed with a storm of blaster bolts coming in from in front and behind him.
The clones all kept coming on, matching the endless wave of the droid army.
"We're exposed out here Captain." A clone called out to him.
He looked around rapidly, spotting what they needed right about now.
Leaning against a slab of rock, Captain 7567 tried to look beyond his spot to check the current position of the droids along with their numbers. But every time he did so, he would duck back, avoiding blaster fire aimed right at him.
Thinking of what to do, he gazed at his present company and quickly took note of some stuff in particular.
"Hand me your Vibroblade."
The one clone nearby complied with the order, never questioning.
With the weapon on hand, he used the pommel to smash into the visor of a wayward trooper helmet. Retrieving the biggest piece of glass, he fashioned it together with some sealing tape from one of his pouches. Once made, the clone captain slowly moved his makeshift hand mirror away from the rock slab and was barely able to make out the droids on top of the ridge.
"Got five droids situated on top." Tilting his impromptu mirror downward, he was able to spot something else. "If we can get a sniper over to that impact crater, it'll be a good firing position to take care of them."
"Problem is, we need some good defense for that to happen." Spoke one of the clones.
"Reason why we'll need to be the support." The captain eyed his brothers. "Who's the best sniper here?" Seeing a hand raised, the leading clone gave his next orders. "Grab some cover closer to that impact crater and give that firing squad hell. Two of you, assist your brother with back up in case things don't go exactly as planned. The rest of you will assist me in covering fire."
The assembled clones accepted the orders.
Getting ready in position, the captain signaled for them to spring into action. The majority of them quickly got out of cover and fired upon the droids from the high vantage point. As the enemy focused on them, the sniper with his backup ran off to get closer to the impact crater. Sliding into the best cover they could get, the sniper took aim, took his time and fired.
The first shot grazed the covering, but the next landed it's mark, leaving a hole into the droid's head. The sniper repeated his action as he took care of the next droid, which caused it to tumble and expose more of it's covering to the rest of the Republic forces.
"We've got our next vantage." 7567 cried out. "Move, move!"
The clones couldn't have moved fast enough, running from their held up positions and advanced further. It wouldn't be much longer before the droids from the high vantage point were no longer there as the Republic forces went to take the vantage position.
The troopers all halted in their tracks for a moment at the cacophony of explosions, metal meeting ground and wind billowing from the far center of the Separatists side of the battle.
Suddenly, without warning, the entire battlefield became entirely enshrouded in what could only be described as a sandstorm.
"What the hell just happened?" The Clone Sergeant shouted out in confusion.
"Anyone have a visual?" 7567 shouted over the commotion.
"Sir." A random clone called out to him. "Our guns just shot down a separatist star ship."
No sooner had they heard this declaration; the sound of another clone troopers voice was heard through their comms.
"The droid army is in full retreat, brothers." The Clone on the comms said victoriously. "Pour it on 'em and leave nothing for the scrap heap."
The resounding roar of victory was heard through all the clone ranks as they began simply standing up and out of any cover that was available to them and marched forward. Even with the dust making it difficult to see, they all knew where the enemy was.
The battle raged on to the point it all became a blur to 7567.
The last thing he recalled were the gunships coming in to pick them up.
We made it through the opening stage of the war with insurmountable losses but we prevailed.
We won the day.
The Grand Army of the Republic, the Brothers and Jedi that survived that war came out battle hardened and ready for whatever the war had to throw at us.
CT-7567 stood before the newly formed clone legion known as the 501st.
It had been some time since Geonosis with him having just returned from Kamino after an extensive training regimen that he had been singled out for among many other Clone officers that would receive ARC trooper training.
It was there that he had met and became close brothers with CC-2224, now known as Cody.
Under the tutelage of one ARC trooper called Alpha-17, he had earned his name.
As well the famed Mandalorian Jaig-eyes upon his helmet that signified one who had excelled in battle and showed exceptional bravery for himself and comrades around him.
As the Clone Captain stood and waited within the large shipyard of Coruscant, he took a moment to reflect upon the battle of Geonosis and the time that had passed since then. For ten years, he and his clone brethren were bred and trained for this. To be the sword and shield of the Republic for when the time would come that they would be called upon into battle.
Strange really. Since Geonosis, there had not been as many battles as one would have expected. There were some planets already entrenched in war yet those were far and few between. Both sides were marshalling and scrambling their forces as desperately as they could. The Republic more so then the Separatists considering how much more prepared and really aware it seems they were of their army in comparison to the Republics.
Right now, the 501st was currently waiting for the Jedi General they were assigned to. All they knew was the name, Anakin Skywalker, as he was recently promoted from Padawan to Knight, hence his rising rank from Commander to General.
7567 heard from other squadrons on their impressions on their own commanding Jedi officers. Some liked their commanders and generals, others haven't. But they had to follow orders and suck it up with their duty to the Republic.
The clone captain, however, hoped that despite the growing reputation of Skywalker, things would be alright working under him.
From the corner of his eye, 7567 saw a Jedi approaching him. Someone he recognized.
His new Jedi general.
When Skywalker came near, 7567 quickly saluted with his 501st brethren following suit.
"Sir, Clone Captain 7567 reporting for duty."
The Jedi's lip twitched upwards. "At ease, soldiers."
The 501st all returned to standing position.
"I guess a basic introduction is in order." The newly minted Jedi Knight declared. "I am Anakin Skywalker, your new general." He began pacing before them. "I know I'm completely new to this and I wasn't truly expecting to be given command of my own legion. But here I am standing before the future greatest legion this galaxy will ever see."
Upon hearing that declaration, some of the clones stood more straighter with all their attention zeroing in on the Jedi.
"This war is gonna be a tough one, there's no doubt about that. But we're all in this together now." he said aloud. "You look out for me and I'll look out for you. We're all the same on the battlefield from here on out. And I know that none of you will let me down."
The Clones all stomped their rifles to the ground and saluted Skywalker once more.
"SIR!" They all bellowed out, drawing some attention from neighboring clone battalions and legions.
Anakin grinned, now looking towards the Clone Captain.
"7567, right?"
"Yes sir." He nodded.
"Got a name I could call you other than that mouthful?"
The Clone Captain couldn't help but smirk slightly before becoming professional once more.
"Captain Rex, general."
Anakin nodded, holding out his hand for the Captain to shake. Accepting it, they both had a firm grip on each other's arms with one shake.
"Good to have you with me, Rex."
"I won't let you down, General Skywalker."
So, this one was short and simple yet took longer cause not gonna lie, needed a bit of time away from the fic to work on other stuff as well gather new ideas.
J and I have been wanting to return to some of our older work and he had just updated one of his best stories, Nobody.
And I also need to get back to Avenging Remnant and Noble Justice as well as develop some of my other new stories I've been working on.
There's also the story BulletStormX and I have been working on, Spirit Unto Dawn so there's that as well as my story with Jebest and whichever others he works on whenever he sends me for help. We're all busy but dang it, we'll try our hardest to be as consistent as possible. Though we don't want a burnout.
That would suck.
So anyway, yeah, drew inspiration from Band Of Brothers and Saving Private Ryan for this one as I felt it apt in this situation.
I feel having Clone exclusive focused chapters is important as we saw in the Clone Wars and since I'm using Band Of brothers as my inspiration for this format I can simply say that there will be nine more of these interspersed throughout the story.
When I have all ten, I'll create a separate story that will have all ten if you guys want something like that.
Other than that, thanks for reading.
Rate Read and Review and as Always Have Nice Day.