Nomad: Ocean of Sand

Chapter 5

Night had fallen and the clones had laid out their bed rolls to sleep. Next to each of them were their weapons, loaded and ready should they need them. Not far from their little camp sat Moon, the night vision visor down over the glass of his helmet. While on watch, he would occasionally look over his shoulder to check on the sleeping Clones who were all quite, except for the loudly snoring Dome. Dome was also the only Clone not sleeping on his roll properly. He was sprawled out, only half on his bed roll.

  Moon smiled as he turned his head back this scanning the horizon. Dome had always been a funny Clone. Back in Kamino, he was well known for his lack of any serious nature and constant joke telling. For now, Moon focused on watching the night sand dunes. Everything was tinted green from the night vision visor. There was the occasional beast roaming the land, but nothing to worry about. His helmet clock told him it had ticked over to midnight, which prompted him to yawn. Moon was tired to say the least after the excitement of their crash and the long trek across the sand. The nutrient bar he had for dinner helped keep him awake, but there was only so much it could do. 

Moon stood up and walked his way over to his bed roll and backpack. He did his best to quietly rummage through it until he found what he was looking for. He pulled a small bottle of pills and piped the cap off of it. Lifting his helmet up his helmet, he threw one of the red pills into his mouth and did his best to choke it down. Taking a deep breath once he got the pill to stay down, he pulled his helmet back down over his head. Moon tightened the cap back onto the bottle of pills and dropped it back into his backpack. With that, he made his way back to sit down on watch, his vision covered in shades of green. It wasn't long before Moon could feel the pill kick in. He felt a rush of energy, banishing his yawns and desire to sleep.

Hours passed by as the four moons of Jotar cycled through the sky. The pill may have been more than Moon needed as he was tapping his fingers away on his rifle to the rhythm of some song he had heard, but couldn't name. He was also bouncing his leg up and down rapidly, trying to burn off his excess energy.

His attention was arrested when he spotted something off in the distance. It looked square, like some metal box. Moon watched as the box moved along the top of a distant sand dune, followed by two other metal boxes. "Metal boxes?" Moon wondered allowed as he rested his DC-15 in his lap, pulling the pair of stolen binoculars Ram had lent him from his belt. He flipped up the night vision visor and held the binoculars up to his helmet. He tapped a button on the top of them and they too turned his vision to the shades of green. Zooming in on the metal boxes, he could now see what they truly were. "Tanks..." was his first thought, but no. They were too small and lacked any main turrets. "APCs?" Moon mumbled as he watched the treaded vehicles come to a halt.

Moon jumped up from sitting and dashed back to his backpack, forgetting to flip his visor down and stumbling in the dark. He wasn't didn't think it was worth waking his men, instead grabbing weapon parts from his pack. Running back to his watch position, he laid down in the sand. Readying his rifle, moon attached a piece to the front, extending the barrel. He also undid the clamps holding the underslung grenade launcher to the rifle and set it down next to him, replacing it with a bipod that he planted in the sand. Finally, removed the scope from its place on the bottom of the rifle and mounted it on the top. With his DC-15 ready, moon flipped the night vision down. He leaned in to line his eye up with the scope in his probe position. He grabbed a small wire from the scope and pulled it out, extending it, and plugged it into the side of his helmet. His vision out of the helmet was taken over by the digital scope, now showing him an up close view of the APCs. Moon was momentarily startled by the instant switch in view, as he always was when using the scope.

Moon could see humanoid creatures exiting the metal boxes and circling around them. The humanoids were tall, maybe seven feet, and thin. Moons suspicions were confirmed when he saw firearms in each creatures hands. It was then that he noticed something laying on the sand just by one of the APCs. While it was taking Moon a minute to figure out what it was, the mystery was solved by a bright flash erupting from the laying object. The flash had hardy even properly registered with Moon when the sand just a foot from him spat up. "Frakk!" He yelled out as sand rained down on him. Whatever they were using, it was powerful and Moon wasn't willing to let them try again. He quickly lined up his sights and pulled his trigger. The modified DC-15 let out a loud hiss as the smell of burning ozone permitted his helmet. He watched the bright blue laser arc across the night sky and strike true. The body of the Humanoid who had fired at him convulsed before collapsing dead. "EVERYBODY WAKE UP!" Moon screamed to his brothers as he lined up another shot at the panicking Humanoids. He pulled the trigger and watched as another target dropped dead, it's wound instantly cauterized by the laser. He could hear the rest of the Clones scrambling towards him only to dive and go prone. Quickly their weapons were set up and firing. Ram used his Valken to lay down a blanket of suppressive fire while the rest used their modified DC-15s to pick off the Humanoids.