To The Victor Goes The Spoils

Mimban: droid headquarters

We trekked through the mire and found the droid command post.  It seemed to have guns spaced every twenty five meters or so, and the wall was comparably tall, probably no more than thirty meters above the mire. 

There was a short kill zone between where the foliage ended and where the wall began, but it was also a shallow marshy area.  I had one of my squad mates throw a fusion cutter into a sealed package, and I submerged myself. 

My plan was simple, I would swim to the wall and cut through, if any of the sentries heard or saw me, our various marksmen would take them down and we would either scale the wall or finish cutting through and the squads would split up from there. 

It was only a quick jaunt of maybe forty meters from our cover to the base of the wall, and my suit provided enough air for at least an hour which was well in excess of the time it would take to get to the wall. 

I submerged myself and kept oriented with the motion tracker using my squad mates behind me as a frame of reference for my otherwise blind swim.  I bumped lightly against the wall and rose slowly, wiping the muck from my visor. 

Once I was sufficiently cleaned up, I ignited the fusion cutter and began carving out a small passageway of roughly two meters to a side.  The fusion cutter glides through the bulkhead and soon, a door is made. 

I motion the squads to start moving over to my position quickly, and very soon, we are inside.  We check our gear to make sure it isn't gunked up beyond functioning, and we take a brief break to quickly clean the gear out. 

Sharp, Dodger, and I quickly go over the objectives one last time before we declare radio silence.  The we move out towards our various objectives.  Dodger to the command tower, Sharp to the shield generators, and myself to the main reactor. 

It isn't long before we encounter trouble.  The trouble was that someone didn't drop one of the security droids fast enough and the alarms were set off.  I don't know who missed one, or even which squad it was, but it made it difficult for all of us. 

I had eschewed my Deece's sniper configuration for more power packs for its carbine configuration and more grenades, and I had similarly foregone my flight pack.  We made a mad, headlong rush towards where we assumed the reactor to be.  I wasn't wrong...

I had simply made an error of judgement.  There wasn't simply one reactor; instead, there were a half dozen of them.  I had the choice to divide my forces and hope that we all succeeded on our own, or to remain together and hope that the reliability would offset the relative slowness. 

I chose the middle ground and split my squad in half.  I picked an ARF trooper named Dice and a heavy trooper named Fuse to come with me and I left the other three under the command of Halo. 

We split up and my team headed onwards while Halo and his boys were finishing up the one we had found.  A rumble shook the base and when we got back outside of the structure, the compound was in total confusion.

At least one droid hangar was entirely leveled, and another was bathed in flame.  We saw two AATs duking it out, right before two troopers sidled up alongside one of them, cracked open the hatches and dropped a droid popper each into the tank.  It went down. 

I realized that Dodger and his boys must have commandeered an AAT and used it to ignite munitions stored in the hangars.  I could only think that it was hilarious.  We had our mission, however, and we had to take down those reactors. 

We took off running.  I took point, and Fuse brought up rearguard.  This meant that Dice had to watch our flanks on his own.  We moved quickly and cut down any infantry who seemed to take an interest in us.  Fortunately, there was sufficient confusion that they didn't seem to notice us. 

We made our way down into another structure and found the second reactor, Dice offered, "wait, what if, instead of blowing it up right now, we turn it off and rig it to blow up if someone reignites it?" 

"How long do you need?" I asked, to which he replied, "not much longer than it would take to set up to blow the whole thing anyways."  "Do it." I said, then I motioned for Fuse to follow me to the door where we stood waiting for enemy troops to emerge. 

They had alternate modes of entry though.  Hatches opened in the ceiling and crab droids started spilling out.  Dice was concealed under the command terminal, but Fuse and I were left wide open.  They pushed us out the door where we had some cover, but no good angles. 

Then we heard the unmistakable tromping of B1s or B2s coming down towards us.  Crabs closing in on one side, infantry were on the other.  Fuse and I were stuck in the middle.  I nodded to him and he kept up the onslaught on the crab droids while they kept pushing. 

I went to meet the column of droids, and I prepped a pair of grenades.  I turned the corner and breathed a sigh of relief, it was simply a column of B1s, not the supers that I had been dreading.  I released my pair of droid poppers into their midst and hopped back behind the corner. 

I popped out of cover crouching so that the droids all shot well above my head.  I swept my blaster across their ranks and popped back behind the corner.  I repeated that process several times, popping out at different heights, never exposing more than my head and blaster. 

Eventually they ran out of droids and I was able to return to see how my boys were faring.  I saw Fuse limping, being supported by Dice.  Apparently, his leg had been baked pretty well by one of the crabs, but Dice had been able to finish them off from his piece of cover. 

I took over supporting Fuse as my Deece could be operated one handed where neither the DC-15A that Dice had nor the Z-6 that Fuse had could.  We broke topside and heard over the comms that the offensive had stalled. 

The shields were still up, three reactors still functioned, and about a third of their air and armor still remained.  We had to finish this before they managed to hunt us down.  I told Dice to wait here with Fuse while I went and secured us some transportation. 

I dashed off and it didn't take me long to find an AAT of my own.  I knocked on the back door and the droids were foolish enough to open.  I put my vibro wrist blade through one, and I double tapped the other.  The commander was trying to climb up and out. 

I pulled hard on his leg and he tumbled from his position into a heap on the ground.  I put my vibro wrist blade through this one as well.  With my new tank being secured, I dropped the tinnies in a pile outside the back of it and drove it back to where my squad was. 

I swear that Dice and Fuse were ready to light me up before I turned around and backed towards them.  I opened the hatch and told them to pile in.  With our tank being secured, we were free to search for the remaining reactors unharrassed. 

We decided to simply bombard the remaining reactors with the AAT's main gun when we found them.  opting out of anything fancy.  By the time the reactors were all down, the shields had been disabled thanks to Sharp and his boys. 

Similarly, thanks to Dodger, it was only a minute fraction of the air and armor which remained.  I called our command to tell them that they would soon be free to commence the bombing run or whatever else they felt like as we had finished the mission and all we had to do was bug out. 

We secured a few more AATs and drove out of the droid base along the heavily fortified and manned main road.  The droids didn't once try to stop us or inspect where we were going.  I love it when they haven't got a thought in that little processor.  It makes my job easy. 

Once we were clear, Sharp radioed command and told them that we were in a column of stolen AATs and were clear.  He told them to commence the attack.  It was a wonderful sight to see as the bombs turned the fortress into rubble.  It was nicer to see them make a second pass. 

We returned to the nearest clone emplacement and disembarked.  The 224th would stay, the 2532nd would ship out, and the galaxy would be many steps nearer to peace.  I was happy to be off of Mimban, but I would've liked to stay with the 224th.