The Varactyl Squadron Commander (A Star Wars: The Clone Wars Fan-Fiction)

Chapter One

"Commander Rino! Commander Rino, please! You must wake up!" 

Molindi gasped as her eyes suddenly opened, two freezing metal hands clamped on her shoulders tightly. A bright white light shined down on her from the lightbulb within her ceiling from inside her bedroom. Her heart gradually began to calm down within her chest once she realized that it had only been a dream, just a nightmare, a replay of the past. She was safe. Molindi was home in her bedroom in the cloning facility of Kamino.

"J-JC?" Molindi stuttered as she blinked her eyes. GH-7JC was her personal droid she had manufactured when she was a young girl. When she had joined the Grand Army of the Republic at the age of fourteen, she had been limited to a very small amount of items she could bring with her to the training facilites. But when she had asked if she could bring her droid with her, the clones in charge had said that it wasn't a problem as long as she remained in Molindi's room. The sound of JC sighing with relief echoed against the white walls around them.

"Goodness, Molindi. You sc-c-c-cared me!" JC glitched out. That was one thing Molindi hadn't been able to modify in her droid, was her constant glitches. Sure, she had been capable of changing the soothing voice of her robot to one that actually sounded more realistic than a medical droid's regular, monotone vocals. But the glitches still remained no matter how hard she tried to fix JC, no matter how many nights she spent slaving away over her droid's electrical circuitry and calibration chambers.

"Why did you call me by my formal name?" Molindi asked as she sat up and rubbed the sleep from her eyelids. JC's engine whirred inside the robot's chest.

"Because you weren't responding when I said your full name. Might as well t-t-t-try something new."

"That glitch still getting to you?" Molindi asked while standing up and walking over to her closet. Her fingertips pressed against the green button on the small control panel next to her closet door and it slid open with a metallic HISSS, revealing her armor inside hanging from two hangers. 

"Y-y-you think?" JC asked sarcastically. Molindi couldn't help but smile. She reached inside for her armor and started with the top half of her outfit, pulling it over her head and making sure the white and yellow plates were secure over her shoulders and chest. Next, she slipped on her pants and the armored plates over that, pulled on her boots, slid her gloves on, then lastly, grabbed her helmet and held it on her right hip, her right arm draped over it lazily.

"How do I look?" Molindi asked with a silly tone in her voice. 

"You've never lo-o-oked better, Molindi." Her droid replied and used her metal robotic hands for emphasis. "You seem oddly chipper even though you just woke up from a terrible nightmare." JC pointed out, waving her slim clawed hand in a skeptical motion. "Why the sudden mood-swing?" Molindi shrugged.

"I guess I just feel lucky to be alive."

'And that I'm not on Ganta-Nego anymore.'

"Well, you have been at this job for quite some time now." JC told her. "Nearly ten years now." Molindi nodded. She had joined the army on her fourteenth birthday, after the murder of her parents. They both had been soldiers, but not as high-ranked as she was now. Her smile wavered at the sudden memory of the people who loved her the most in the world, but tried to not let her thoughts hurt her mood too much. The commander snagged her two blaster pistols and slid them into their holsters at her sides, then put her helmet on over her head. 

"I should get going, I don't want to be late to meet my new squad."

* * * * * * * * * *

He waited in that strange room alone, his back leaning against the wall as he examined his own plain white helmet. This was the second time in the past six weeks that he had been re-assigned to a new squadron. His original squad, before any re-assigning had been done, had been called Green Squadron. But then, sadly, his troops had passed away when their gunship crashed directly ontop of the battlefield. Those who had survived the crash were soon shot by surrounding droids. He would've ended up shot, too, if another squadron hadn't come by and rescued him.

Then the 'moving around from group to group' began.

At first it had been Rancor Squadron, but that had been illiminated in a battle on Kashyyyk when things had gone terribly wrong with a box of explosives. The poor guy had barely memorized his fellow-clones' nicknames when things went BOOM! In a way, that was easier for him. It was good that he hadn't gotten too attached to them, but it was still a terrible loss. And not to mention very devastating to his reputation as a trooper. By that point, people were starting to get suspicious of him, considering the fact that he had been the only survivor in two devestated accidents that involved the death of both his squadrons.

By the time he was being re-located for the second time, one of the Jedi Generals had actually been asked to interogate him, just to be sure that he wasn't some sort of sabotaging-defective clone that was secretly working for the Seppies.

Of course, he wasn't working against the Republic at all. He was just a very unlucky trooper.

Hopefully that wasn't the case with this new squadron of his that he'd be joining.

The door slid open with a familiar mechanical HISSS, causing the trooper to look up from his helmet and trail his attention over to the entry way. Three other clones entered the room, each one without a helmet and a different hairstyle and eye color. The one to the right had short black hair and brown eyes, the one in the middle was bald and had green eyes, while the one on the left sported a short slim mohawk that went straight down the middle of his scalp and had blue eyes. The two things they all had in common were their armor and faces, which wasn't uncommon in the Clone Army.

"I'm assuming this is Varactyl Squad." The single clone with his back leaned against the colorless wall stated. The bald one in the middle nodded.

"You assumed right." the one with the mohawk stated with a smirk. He lifted his gloved thumb and aimed it to the clone on the right, then went down the line as he introduced them. "That's Risk. He's our go-to guy when it comes to explosives. Baldy over here is Breaks, and he's our weapons specialist. And I'm Tyson, I specialize in busting up as many clankers as I can on the battlefield."

"Nice to meet you all." The single clone replied and stood up tall. "The name's Axel. I work with strategics and planning out our battle movements." 

"Nice to meet you as well, Axel." Risk said politely, then looked around the little empty room. He raised an eyebrow. "There's four of us, but weren't we supposed to meet our commander as well?" Tyson checked the door, making sure that it was closed so no one could hear him speak, then smiled slyly as he folded his arms.

"Have you heard about the Varactyl Squadron commander? About why he's been assigned a new squad?" he asked the three other men. They all shook their heads in unison. Tyson looked over at the door once more before continuing. He knew that what he was about to say was dangerous if the wrong people heard. He lowered his voice to a quiet whisper, then spoke. "People have been saying that a year ago, Commander Rino and the previous members of Varactyl Squadron were making a supply-run to one of the abandoned bases over by the Livivitan sector." Their eyes widened.

"Really? The Livivitan sector? Don't they say that that sectors, like, haunted or something?" Breaks asked. 

"Knock it off, Tyson. The Livivitan sector isn't haunted." Risk told him as he nudged the clone's shoulder. Axel could tell that out of the three new-comers, Risk was definitely the realist of the group, the one that never believed in myths or folktales of any kind and kept the clones' heads on straight instead of floating around in the clouds.

"Maybe not by ghosts or spirits." Tyson suggested, then grinned a maniacal grin. "But cannibals are definitely an issue over on the planet Ganta-Nego."

"Cannibals? You mean people that eat...." Breaks paused for a moment, almost as if he was trying to work up the nerve to finish his sentence. "...people?"

"Are you saying that Varactyl Squadron was killed by a bunch of cannibals?" Axel questioned skeptically, his own arms folded over his chest as well. This story sounded a little far-fetched, and that was coming from a man who had been accused of killing not one entire squad, but two. The mohawked trooper just shrugged.

"No one knows what happened to them. All they know is that five soldiers crashed onto the planet, and that three months later, only one walked away alive. And in one piece."