To The Victor Goes The Spoils

Surface of Geonosis

We've got our orders. The Grand Army of the Republic is being deployed to Geonosis to provide support to the jedi there. My Squad kits up in the blink of an eye. We're finally leaving the facility which we've called home for the last decade.

Our orders are relayed as we traverse the blackness of space, and they seem to be a simple hunt and destroy mission. Apparently we're intending to cripple the enemy in this one battle. Our target is a munitions dump concealed below the surface.

The atmosphere in the larger assault craft seems to be largely excited, tempered by grim realization of the action we are about to undertake. Our LAAT in the larger assault craft seems to be one of, not anxiety, but not excitement either. It's almost a tension, like a bow under stress.

We go over what we know of our target which is only very little until we're prone to start reciting them in our sleep. The target is approximately 75 meters below the surface of the planet. Too deep for us to simply bombard it with artillery and hope that we get it.

We're going in to the cache and blowing it all to hell. Fortunately, only one detonator will likely be necessary as there are so many munitions stored that it should go off at the lightest prompting from us.

We can feel the shudder of the assault craft entering atmosphere and we run our final gear checks for what feels like the two hundredth time, although it was probably only half of that. I secure my Deece to my hip across from my DC-17 sidearm.

Through some quirk of my training or manufacture, I'm left handed where some ninety nine percent of my brethren are right hand dominant. It makes my squad jealous that I'm the only one who can happily and easily holster my Deece.

My flight pack is secured and we can see the red orange of the planets dusty surface through the gaps in the LAAT's doors. It's taking us to our drop zone before it carries the rest of the troops to the main battlefield. The doors open and we leap out into the open air.

The air below is thick with dust, but up above it is bright and clear and with our armor mostly sealed for the jump, the drop is peaceful. The landing is smooth and we all split up from the drop zone to place our various pieces of ordnance.

My route takes me up a cliff before I enter the compound. Steam is entering through the main shipping route with Pointer providing fire support. Call is, like me, taking an alternate entrance. I can think on their part of the mission no longer as I need to focus on mine.

The door has two B2 super battle droids standing guard outside. I sidle up behind a rock and try to make a Geonosian sounding click. They look at each other and I become worried that they won't go for it, then one walks towards my hiding spot.

Once it rounds the corner, it finds my vibro wrist blade embedded in its optics. I pull my blade out viciously tearing at the faceplate and it tumbles. The other is now on high alert as it has lost contact with its partner.

I'm no technical expert, so I ignore the now deactivated droid in favor of rushing the remaining B2 with my sidearm. I don't want to break out my Deece until I'm at least into the facility. The B2 shrugs off the first few hits, but under sustained pressure, its faceplate gives out.

The guards being handled, I reholster my sidearm and forcibly access the control panel to the door. I've never claimed to be good at slicing, but it was almost laughably easy. I accessed the grav lift and began my descent into the bowels of the munitions dump.

Given the lack of chatter on our comm channel, none of us have met with any substantial resistance yet. I stalk through the hallways in the labyrinthine passageways of the munitions dump. As I progress, my HUD is making a map so I won't have to worry about getting lost.

I continue deeper into the caverns above the munitions dump and come to another heavy security door. I can hear something very loud, but very muffled on the far side so I set about slicing through the control panel.

Pointer and Call were both far superior to me at getting through security terminals, but to my pleasure, the door opened with a whoosh and I saw that the noise I had heard on this side was Geonosians and droids trying futilely to repel Call.

I decided to help out although he hardly would have needed it. I drew my Deece and set about cutting them down from behind. I supplemented with a few thermal detonators for good measure. The guards being dispatched, Call and I touched base quickly.

As best he could tell, Pointer and Steam had been stalled by some sort of quadripedal droid with a massive turret on top of it. According to them, it looked like a slightly larger and much more advanced dwarf spider droid.

The reason I hadn't heard any comms chatter is that the tunnels had been completely cutting me off from connection to my squad. Now that I was into the main structure, the interference was mostly gone and Call had jacked us into the facility's comm systems.

We were moving in to help handle the droid that had them pinned. It was utterly massive. It was probably 4 meters long and wide, and 3 meters tall or so. It seemed to have a few blasters it was using to suppress our squadmates.

Every so often, it used its main cannon to destroy a piece of cover and it seemed to be done with about sixty percent or so of the usable cover in the room. I tried a droid popper, but it seemed to shrug it off with no trouble. It did draw its attention, however.

It began the laborious process of turning to face us and I had the brilliant idea to get under it and start trying to drill up into it with my sidearm. After what felt like five minutes, I had managed to leave a rather impressive looking scorch mark on its undercarriage.

I heard Steam over the comms say, "I've found some usable ordnance, that means, Victor, clear out from under the droid." When Steam tells you to clear out, you listen if you have any sort of self preservation instinct.

I booked it, and very shortly after, a pair of rockets came screaming from up the tunnel. They struck the droid and it burst like an overripe Varos. With the droid removed from play, the squad was free to return to the main objective.

We again split up and went to our destinations. We planted the bombs and were about to leave when the comms went down. The lights went down at the same time and an ear splitting wail pierced the air.

The comms weren't completely down, but they were flooded with horrific sounds of all manner and doused in static to boot. The source of the wail became apparent very quickly. The bugs had decided to start playing.

They pursued me doggedly into the catacombs under the munitions dump, and they seemed to be funneling me towards something. Everytime I neared a cross tunnel that would've taken me towards an exit, I found it blocked off.

I was running low on ammo and realized that I needed to change the game. I hadn't heard anything from my squadmates in ages, and I had to assume that they would take care of themselves.

I dropped a thermal detonator and two flash grenades to buy myself some space while I took off my flight pack. I had a crazy plan and I was really hoping that it would work. If it did, I would be able to burn my way out of these tunnels. If it didn't, I would blow myself up.

The scariest part of this plan was the concern that I would go down in the books as the commando with the most monumentally idiotic death. I punched a hole in my flight pack's fuel tank and dumped the fuel on the ground.

The Geonosians were recovering and rushing me, and just as the first few crossed over my discarded flight pack, I ignited it with my sidearm. The fire leapt to the ceiling and the crush of bodies resulted in many of the front members being burnt beyond recognition.

The space that bought me proved sufficient to break into a side corridor, and once I was out of the main corridor, I was home free. I broke through to the surface, and it was only a short walk to the rendezvous.

I was the only one there. I waited for minutes, hoping that the others would show. The minutes ticked by and I was about ready to call for an LAAT when Pointer got through with a message. "pinned in...detonate the bombs...luck, boys"

I was about to run back in when the ground underneath me rocked and a plume of smoke, ash, and dirt spewed into the air. I was tossed off of my feet. I called the mission completed to our superiors with a mechanical voice. I was picked up and returned to the fleet.