"Holy Frak!" yelled Razor as his pod tumbled through the atmosphere.

He had been through drop pod training and did not enjoy the drops. Ever.

He pulled the cord as soon as he could and the chute opened while he flew upwards.

When he opened his eyes he saw that he was falling over a huge temperate zone.  He slowly decreased altitude and he approached the tree line.  As he was passing through the tree line his chute caught on one of the trees.

"This day couldn't get worse could it?" Razor asked to the birds who were pecking at his mask because he was in a tree with their nest.

Just as he was saying this a group of rebels passed below his tree doing well to cover their six's, nine's, and three's but no one thought to look up in a tree.  Razor was wrapped in his heavy kevlar blast resistant chute so he decided to shoot down on the five rebels below him.

He pulled out his DL-55 and carefully took aim at one of the rebels and fired down on him and hit him in the face with a bolt.  The men quickly looked around then razor blasted another man away and they saw him up in his tree.

The men dove backwards and behind trees or large rocks for cover.  Razor was really up a tree now.

The men began wildly firing at him, the occasional shot that hit him was absorbed by the kevlar chute. Then one of the men pulled out a hard-round firing gun and blasted a shot right into Razor's side.  It dented his armor and Razor knew he was going to have one hell of a bruise on his side.

Razor was in trouble.  If enough of those hard bolts hit him he would wouldn't die but the broken bones he would have would surely stop him from walking far.

Just as he was deciding how best to excuse himself from this gun battle without dyeing he saw one of the rebels fall from behind one of the trees clutching at a smoking hole in his chest.  The other two fell moments later with similar wounds.

Razor grabbed his vibroblade and sliced upwards, cutting all the strings keeping him attached to his chute and he plummeted toward the ground. 

He stabbed out sideways with his vibroblade and it dug into the tree and slowed him to a stop two feet above the ground. 

He yanked his blade out of the tree and landed hard on the small patch of earth surrounding his tree.

Out of the swamp around him came three troopers in white armor.

"Nice work out there boys.  You the Newbies?" asked Razor.

"Sir, yes sir." replied one of the neophytes.

"Right well, lets get moving before we see more rebels.  They were probably attracted by the sound."

Cerus was motivated by simple things. His next meal, a handful of credchips, the prospect of a profitable job...

That alone put him above half the idiots running through the swamp, at least in his own mind. Between the ones screaming rebel catchphrases and the Imperial haters looking for a helmet trophy or two, they didn't have the common sense to just hide.

Cerus was smarter than the others. Oh, he was tagging along with their little crusade, but there was a cred chip tucked in a waterproof pouch to account for that, with twice that given to the idiots still alive at the end. (One of the Imp-haters evidently had very deep pockets.)

He had every intention of collecting the second payment. No point in wandering through muck and potentially getting shot at for free, after all.

Cerus glanced over his shoulder, scowling as he saw that the pair of droids had fallen behind. Just what he kriffing needed. Why did their sponsor have to saddle him with these two antiques, anyway?

Pulling his boot from the muck with a squelch, the mercenary spun around and made his way over to where the two droids had stopped. One was standing there, its elongated head bobbing up and down in distress. The other was tugging on the first one's right arm, its servos squealing in protest at the effort.

Cerus muttered something very rude under his breath. The droids didn't seem to hear.

"Keep moving, tinheads!" the mercenary barked, stopping in front of the two droids and gesturing with his battered carbine.

"Identity confirmed. Organic. Designation: Ally. Responding." the droid rattled in a monotone. "Roger roger. Error. Order cannot be completed as stated."

"Speak Basic, you walking scrapheap." Cerus muttered, nervously glancing from side to side. The sound of distant blasterfire was echoing through the swamp, barely audible over the background noise.

"Order confirmed. Roger roger. Error. Order already in effect."

Cerus half-closed his eyes, rubbing his forehead with the hand not holding a blaster. It came away soaked with sweat.

"That's not what I meant, you stupid..."

The droids both turned to look at him, photoreceptors blank.

"Never mind," he sighed. "Why can't you move?"

"Processing query. Clarifying. This unit's right foot is incapable of movement. Removal of limb would compromise unit effectiveness. Removal of limb from sediment would restore full unit movement."

"In other words, the damn thing's gotten stuck."

"Responding. Affirmative."

Cerrus swore out loud, running through profanity from three different dialects in less than a minute.

Abruptly, he stopped, breaking off in mid-phrase and glancing around.

"Did you hear that?"

"Processing query. Error. Insufficient information. Clarification of designation 'that' required."

"No, just listen. A sort of whistling noise...Almost sounds like someone yel-"

"-pire!"

Cerrus was cut off as a tangled mass of stormtrooper, armour, and drop chute landed on him in a spray of water and muck.

====

Corvin felt the man give way as he collapsed, the tattered remains of his chute trailing above him as he rolled. Blaster craters pocked his leg and stomach armour, and his pistol holster had come loose during the drop.

The trooper stayed face down in the muck for a moment, struggling to breathe. Twinges of pain were shooting up his legs from where he'd hit the rebel during the landing. They didn't seem to be broken though, which was something.

Through either good aim or simple luck, the mercs had scored a number of hits during the drop, tearing away sections of his parachute and sending him off course. Either the fabric wasn't as blaster-proof as it was supposed to be, or it had been another piece of bad luck.

Corvin was getting tired of bad luck.

There was a rasping noise from behind him, accompanied by a loud splash, and then another.

"Frak." Corvin murmured, then pulled himself to his knees, reaching for his carbine as he did so.

Something grabbed his ankle and started to drag him back down.

"Frak!" he snarled, frantically scrabbling to get a handhold.

"Identity confirmed," his attacker droned, tightening its grip as it did so. "Organic. Designation: Imperial. Terminate."

The pair of Stormtroopers turned and waved at someone unseen - Garryll assumed it was another Stormtrooper or two. His guess was right, and he soon had four men in white and Wayne gathered around the supplies cache.

Names popped up, next to their vital signs, as the troopers tapped into his local command channel. He ran a practiced eye over each man as he came. Sergeant Izzio, SL, Shock; PFC Williams, Blaze; PSC Kalindo, Shock; PFC Lenard, Blaze

Wayne was prying open the pod, standard Navy handgun on his hip. A few seconds' struggle later, and the front of the pod came off. Three of the troopers crowded around. Gates sighed into his helmet.

"Williams, Kalindo, Lenard! Perimeter!"

Williams had already headed that way, but the other two looked guiltily at the Blackjack SL before trudging away. Wayne stepped aside, and Gates started pulling weapons and ammunition out of the pod. A long-barreled sniper rifle was the first weapon he found - he slid it onto his back, along with a half-dozen reloads into his belt. A trio of stock E-11s were next; he tossed one to Wayne, and pulled out a box of standard-pattern power cells for the E-11s.

"Wayne, take some of these and give the rest to the others," Gates said, handing the box to the Navy man. Izzio dug through the pod, and pulled out a pair of grenade bandoleers and a backpack. He handed one of the bandoleers to Gates and slung the other over his shoulder, then set the pack down and tossed everything else from the pod - a few medpacs, ration packs, pistols, E-11s, loose power cells and flares - into his backpack.

"Alright, let's get ready to move," Gates said into the comlink. "Williams, you're on point; Lenard, cover him. Kalindo, you've got our six; Wayne, cover him. Me'n Izzio will back the front play; keep alert - we know there's hostiles in this stink hole."

"Yes sir," Williams replied dutifully, moving forwards, Lenard trailing a dozen paces behind, E-11 carbine half-raised. Wayne nodded politely and stood next to Kalindo while he waited for the the Stormtrooper officers to move up. Gates moved up easily, swapping his trusty old rifle for the longblaster. It fit snugly into his shoulder, and he carried it length-wise, raised slightly so as to keep the thin barrel free of foul-ups by swamp muck.

The short-range comlink crackled. Gates waved a hand and knelt in the mud, moving slowly forwards to take cover behind a tree. Williams spoke a moment later, breathless but confident: "Contacts spotted, sir. Half-dozen men, rifles and such, and a fireteam of B1's, sir. Ten contacts, all told. They're headed right for us. Me an' Lenard have good cover, sir."

"Good; we'll move up to support you. Don't fire until I give the order or you think you'll lose the element of surprise; use your best judgement," Gates ordered briskly, waving Kalindo and Wayne up. "Let's go, Izzio."

The four men moved up, getting to the two pointmen without incident. Gates dropped behind a fallen log next to Izzio and braced the longblaster on it, sighting carefully. "Call the shot, Sergeant."

"Don't you think you ought to, sir?" the young SL asked.

"Use your best judgement, son," Gates said, and chuckled to himself. He wasn't that old at all- hell, he was probably less than five years older than the other man.

Izzio could be heard swallowing across the comlink. "Alright. Everyone got a shot?"

A chorus of "Yes sirs," "Aye aye's," and a "Yup" answered him.

"Fire - fire - fire! Take take take!"

Gates pulled the trigger - four and a half pounds of pressure sent a high-powered laser bolt spitting from the barrel at the speed of light. It crossed the twenty meters of swamp land in an instant, ionizing the air around it, until it impacted its target, the lead renegade in the forehead, taking most of his face with it. The rifle's stock thumped against Gates' shoulder, a familiar feeling.

He slipped out of the adrenaline spike of the thrill of combat's start, and time seemed to be running normally again. Lasers were burning across the wet swamp air, the cacophonous bark of five E-11 carbines as they fired steadily. The motley collection of weapons their enemies had were responding largely on full-auto as the men emptied their weapons at the Imperials.

"Targets confirmed."
"Roger roger."
"Terminate Imperial targets."

The B1s clanked forwards, their blasters flinging death at the Imperial men. Gates sighted again - icy calm, ignoring the tiny pings of deflected laser bolts and the occasional hiss of a bad miss and a thump on the log as a laser took the log full-on. The cross-hairs rested on the lead Battle Droid's skeleton-like skull, and he applied enough pressure to fire again.

The droid collapsed, its head gone. A barrage of E-11 fire, inaccurate but deadly, took the idiotically advancing machines in mid-stride, scattering them to burnt pieces. Izzio yelled, from his position next to Gates, "They're pulling back!"

And indeed they were; the loss of the quartet of battle droids had apparently disheartened the rebels enough to drive them into retreat. Izzio made to stand up, but Gates raised a closed fist. The Shock SL dropped back down.

"Let 'em go," Gates said. "We're not here to clean 'em out. And they might have a trap waiting back there, anyway."

OOC:

Remember: We are all in separate areas of the swamp; we've got backup - of the purely rank-and-file Stormtroopers (and the Blaze SL). We'll link up at the end of the story.
By the way; pods can contain some heavy weapons of assorted types - again, use best judgement

The motley fireteam advanced again, the single veteran Stormtrooper Gates had found taking point.

"What's our ETA?" asked Wayne.

"At the rate we're going," Gates said, consulting his HUD, "Another hour an' a half."

"Alright," the Navy man replied, and they lapsed back into silence. The group marched along, Williams scanning carefully and carbine raised. They hadn't spotted a single enemy since their earlier contact, but they weren't going to take any chances. Gates' long blaster was in his hands, his HUD set to track any motion that wasn't carrying a friendly IFF.

"Contacts," Williams hissed over the comlink, and Gates saw the white-clad man a dozen meters in front of him silently slip behind a tree trunk. "B1s!"

"Cover," Gates ordered, fitting actions to words and huddling behind a particularly large pile of mud. The other men fell into positions with equal speed and finesse.

"Orders?" asked Kalindo, audibly licking his lips. "Shall we fire, sir?"

"What's our opposition like?" Izzio asked Williams.

"Ten B1s, one organic guy in charge," the experienced soldier said. "I've got a bead on the organic."

"Good, good," Gates said, relaxed, his scope's crosshairs following the lead battle droid's head. "Izzio; tell me. Should we open up on these traitorous scum or not?"

"You want me to decide, sir?"

"It's called on-the-job training, Sergeant."

"Yes sir, thank you sir."

The young Stormtrooper leader looked hard at the marching battle droids. "No; stand down. Fire only if fired upon."

"You heard the man, boys. Stand down."

Lenard adjusted his position, lowering his carbine from where it was resting on the mud pile. A large rock fell loose and splashed heavily in the thick, murky water.

"Shit," Gates said philosophically, his rifle having never moved from his eye, as the battle droids turned as one and raised their rifles. "Always hits the fan."

The organic leader raised his arm to give the droids the order to fire, but Williams burned him down, and Gates fired his rifle, the kick expelling a laser bolt downrange in the blink of an eye. The two targets fell, one sparking, the other gurgling as he expired. The other Stormtroopers and Wayne dove into the mud as the B1 squad fired back, poorly-aimed laser bolts flickering in the dim swamp light. The worst of the machines' bolts kicked up bursts of super-heated steam as they splashed into the mud or smashing into trees, sending burning splinters away.

"Sonzabitches!" Lenard swore, standing tall in the face of fire and blasting with his carbine. "Take it, boys!"

Lasers stitched the air around the reckless trooper, prompting him to drop quickly behind his cover again, panting in an adrenaline rush. "Christ, Corvin. Keep your head down," Gates murmured absentmindedly.

"What, sir?" asked Lenard. He sprayed some laser fire downrange. "Did you say something, sir?"

"Oh, nothing," Gates replied, his crosshairs straying to and fro across the battlefield, his crosshairs settling on another battle droid. He dropped his aim from the wildly spinning head and fired at the relatively stationary chest, blowing the droid to pieces with one high-powered laser bolt.

"They're advancing!" cried Kalindo, his laser bolts dragging another down. "What should we - AUGH!"

"And he's hit," Gates said, becoming instantly more serious. "Wayne, check his vitals and if he's dead, take his ammo. If he's alive, cover the wound and spray some damn bacta on it."

"He's alive," the Navy man said a second later. "Cursing up a blue storm."

Wayne ripped a bandage out of the medpac and soaked it in bacta before stuffing it onto the wounded area - eliciting a hiss of pain from the injured Stormtrooper - and then wrapping some medical tape around it, working like a battlefield corpsman. He didn't hesitate even as laser bolts flickered around him, one shaving close enough to scar his helmet's paint.

"Alright, he's patched up enough, Navy-boy," Gates snapped. "Drag his ass behind cover and get behind it yourself. Cover fire!"

He'd barked the last bit at the remaining upright Stormtroopers, and they obliged gleefully, ripping off a dozen shots each at the inexorably advancing robots.

OOC:

Not my best post, but meh. It [b]is[/i] a post.

"Alright, get down," Garryll said crisply, pulling a grenade from his belt. "I've had about enough of these tin sonzabitches."

The metal cylinder rotated around lazily a half-dozen times as Gates let it fly. It landed in the muck next to the lead droid's foot, blinked twice, and exploded, shredding the machine and two of its remaining compantions. The other droids were staggered, and Wayne and Lenard popped up and filled the remaining droids with laser bolts.

"Get Kalindo on his feet; we're double-timing it to the evac point," Gates said. "Move it, now."

Williams jogged off at an increased pace, his rifle always at the ready. Wayne and Lenard supported the injured member of their party, and Izzio marched quickly in front of them, head on the swivel. Gates followed a few yards back, setting his HUD to track for movement. They moved in silence for an hour, pausing only for sips from their canteens.

"Williams here, sir," the point man's voice came across the comlink again. "Made it to the RV point; no one's here. Clearing, it looks like."

"Alright, scout the area; we'll dig in and wait for the rest," Gates said. "Get the shovels, out boys - we're digging in."

The Stormtroopers dutifully went about their orders, pulling the short half-shovels from their backpacks and began digging. Gates sighed, and dropped his gear in an untidy pile before producing his own shovel and helping out. The swamp dirt here was of perfect consistency for digging; thick enough to stick together, soft enough to give. Soon enough, they had a five foot deep, five-foot long hole in the ground.

Lenard clicked the comlink; "Contacts. They're friendlies."

"Keep 'em covered anyway," Gates ordered, sticking his shovel into the soil, and picking up his A-280. He set it back aside when the voices of Stormtroopers broke into their comm channel. "Any Blackjacks there?"

"No sir," a new voice said. "Just a mixed bag of Blazes and Shocks."

"That sounds pleasant," Gates replied. "Corporal."

The new contacts appeared on his HUD, and added their name, ranks, and health status to his command roster. "Glad to be here, Sarge. Where do you need us?"

"Digging holes," Gates ordered, going back to tossing dirt into the pile they'd formed earlier in front of the holes, forming a makeshift bunker. Wordlessly, the five new arrivals began to help extend the trench. Time passed slowly, the monotonous chore of digging a trench grinding on the Blackjack SL's nerves. Eventually, they had a five-foot-deep, five-foot wide, twenty-foot long trench, and they began to drop into it. The sun was dipping below the horizon, and the swamp's night life came alive.

Creatures, large and small began to skitter about in the darkness; their movement set Gates motion detectors off every few seconds, and eventually, he shut them off entirely. With ten pairs of eyes now watching, they could afford not to be totally paranoid. He sat at the bottom of the trench, and opened up a ration pack.

It was cold, tasted of almost nothing, but it was food, and he was grateful for it. The rest of the Stormtroopers couldn't show up soon enough, so they could get the hell out of this muck. As he was drifting off, simply resting his eyes and legs, a whisper came across his comlink.

"Contacts."

OOC:

Alright, Garryll and two fireteams of Blaze and Shock guys are at the RV point; post your way there, and we'll have some actual stand-up battles and such (sorry, not a great post; creative juices are really lacking today)

Two minutes prior to ship evac...

Ryan Korr strapped on his belt over his red armor. He twirled his new found backup weapon of choice, the M4 “Bull Stopper” Slugthrower, and smacked it into his right holster. His DC-15s pistol already hung in the left, cross-draw holster. The M4 could pack a punch, but the DC-15s could recharge its shots, making it a more efficient weapon for long term engagements. Slung around his shoulders was an 8 gauge shotgun, a weapon fulfilling a variety of roles.

Korr sighed and began to twirl one of his pistols absent mindedly. Why was he in the Stormtrooper corps? Amnesty. The recruiter had guaranteed him amnesty for crimes committed and dissolved all bounties upon his head, of which there were quite a few. Running away grew old for Ryan. So he stopped running. Thus far all the agreements had held. Korr hadn’t had a merc or bounty hunter on his tail for at least half a year, that didn’t mean all his enemies had given up. Too many were not in the Empire or were not affiliated with any legal government. But as long as he was on the field of combat, no one but the Empire’s enemies tried to gun him down, and he was just one out of a couple thousand targets.

The ship rocked suddenly and he heard Gates yelling something inaudible. Corvin ran through, passing out parachutes. Ryan snatched one as Corvin passed by and shrugged it on. Apparently, he had missed the memo. No sooner had he gotten the parachute on when Gates started telling at everyone to get ready to jump. The boarding ramp extended into open air. As the troops began to file to the boarding ramp, Ryan found himself second in line. Not good. Any sniper worth his pay ground side shot for the first couple troopers off. That meant the trooper in front of Ryan, and himself. Korr watched the guy in front jump off shakily. The man behind Korr muttered curses about how slowly the line was moving. Standing on the edge of the ramp, Ryan saw the signal given. He jumped.

His stomach, where had it gone? He figured he must have left it somewhere in the atmosphere. Instead of typical skydiving form, Ryan clamped his arms and legs together as he shot straight towards the ground. Altitude meters in his helmet counted down rapidly. Calmly, he voice activated the macrobinoculars in his helmet and zoomed in on the turf around him. He found a suitable space of ground to his right, then red bolts of plasma come hurtling out of woods and into the air. The first trooper out of the plane had deployed his chute a little too early and bolts whizzed around him. Ryan waited. Longer and longer, altitude was dropping faster and faster, finally, at nine hundred and fifty meters he activated his chute. He barely felt the chute snap open through his armor. He surveyed the terrain. The ground looked strange, he couldn’t quite point out what was wrong with it. It certainly looked flat, but something didn’t quite fit. Then the ground came rushing up to meet him.

One moment there was a trooper in red armor coming down on a seemingly grassy plain, the next, it seemed as if the earth had opened up to swallow him whole. He had simply, disappeared.

Ryan rolled once, through something a little less than water. He came up standing, waist deep in the muck and combat knife in hand. Korr punched the release pad for the chute and cut off any strands that still entangled him. Sheathing his knife, he once again surveyed the terrain with new eyes. It was indeed a swamp. The small space he had thought grassy terrain was in fact, a soggy mire, liable to give unarmored troops trenchfoot and all sorts of diseases. Troops were still coming down from the sky. None seemed to be coming near his position. A thin ring of trees encircled the swampy mire where he had landed. Korr found his 8 gauge still slung around his shoulders and pistols still in their holsters. He unslung the powerful shotgun and stared through his helmet’s visor. IFF friendly transponders began showing up in large numbers to his right. Korr began working his way towards that area, going as fast as the mire would allow him.

Two minutes later, he pulled his leg free of the last of the muck and finally stepped onto something resembling solid ground, he looked down and saw that it was, in fact, a tree root. He continued to move forward and found that the ground was becoming increasingly solid, although he twice stepped in patches of mire. A swampy forest surrounded him. Roots jutted straight up from the ground and branches from the trees fell in curtains, while all the while a detestable odor arouse from the ground. Korr grunted as he pulled his leg free of another swampy patch, and stopped suddenly. Something had just moved in edge of his vision. Specter slowly settled down to the ground and crept behind a tree. A distinctly metal clang reverberated from just to the right, Ryan got to a knee and edged his way around to tree trunk. A B-1 battle droid stood, its metal foot resting on a tree root and its blaster pointed at a trooper far up in the branches of the tree, entangled by his parachute and unmoving. The battle droid obviously meant harm and constituted a clear and present danger. Immediately classifying it as hostile, Ryan raised his shotgun and fired. The metal slugs ripped the entire upper body of the droid clean off. It fell to the ground sparking. Ryan meanwhile almost had his arm ripped out of its socket by the recoil the stockless shotgun had. A flight of birds vanished from their perches in the trees with the resounding sounds of the shotgun’s discharge. Korr stared up at the trooper in the trees. The fall wouldn’t be too bad, if he could some how wake up and punch the release button, but then Ryan didn’t even know if the trooper was alive or not. Ryan decided that there were only two options left. He could climb up there and punch the release pad himself, or he could...

Korr aimed and fired. Wood shattered and the branch upon which the trooper hung made a resounding crack as it finally gave way. Trooper and branch fell to the ground in a heap. Ryan looked at the 8 gauge shotgun, he hadn’t really expected the unorthodox solution to work. But whatever did the job... Walking over to the trooper, Ryan removed the man’s helm and examined his vital signs. He was alive, probably a minor concussion, but he was alive. Korr removed the parachute from the trooper’s body and identified the man as belonging to Shock squad. Korr shook the man. A dull groan escaped the the trooper’s lips.

“Wake up.”

“Wha-where am I?”

“In a swamp. We had to evac the ship. You crash landed in the trees with your parachute.”?
“I-I remember, agh, my head.”

“What’s your name?”

“Neil, Neil Astor.”

“Alright then Astor, open your eyes and look right at this flashlight.”

The beam of the flashlight Ryan had extracted from his utility belt shone right into the man’s eyes. They dilated....somewhat. Korr replaced the flashlight into his utility belt and stood up, offering Neil a hand.

“Specter,” He said, referring to his military callsign as he heaved Astor off the ground, “You’ve got a light concussion, but you’ll be alright. Got a weapon?” Ryan offered Neil his helmet. The new recruit took it and shoved it back on, his white armor still gleaming. Korr noticed that his own armor was almost unrecognizable and covered in all kinds of muck from his landing. Good for camouflage, bad for parade ground.

“No, it must’ve gotten lost when I landed.” The synthesized voice came out through the helmet, still sounding groggy. Ryan fished around in his utility belt and came up with a small box of shotgun shells. He pointed to a patch of mire.

“Roll around in that and I’ll give you these.” I’ll

Neil cocked his helmeted head, and then seemed to realize why. He did what Ryan asked with some enthusiasm, covering himself in the muck until he was barely recognizable. Korr shoved the shotgun into the grimy hands of Neil. Maybe the kid might survive.

Together the two of them started forward cautiously, moving always in the direction of the RV point. Halfway there, some unpleasant surprises gave them large welcoming committee to the swamp lands. Half a dozen hostiles opened fire on the two troopers. Korr identified two as being human, the rest were battle droids. It seemed to be a large patrol. Ryan ducked behind a tree and signaled Neil to do the same. The enemy had seen them, obviously. They also outnumbered them, which meant they could flank. Moving around to the left side of the tree trunk, Ryan peered around the rim of the tree. Three of the battle droids were in plain sight, as well as one human male. He steadied his pistol and lined up the iron sights. His finger depressed the firing stud. A .45 hollow point round shot from the barrel and took the human in the right side of the head head, ripping through bone and brain. It exited the left side, leaving a smear of blood on the tree behind him.

Specter retargeted. Two slugs ripped through the circuitry of the rear battle droid. A small electrical fire blossomed in its chest, consuming the B-1 as it lay in a heap of trashed metal and wires upon the swampy floor. The remaining battle droid ran through its threat assessment program, photoreceptors glancing around the swamp. Ryan put a precision hole through its chest. Its cries of “We’re under fire.” ceased almost as soon as they had begun. Silence reigned. For a short time.

“Don’t move, buckethead.” A human voice

“Roger, roger.”

Suddenly, an explosive boom that meant the eight gauge had been discharged reverberated around the forest. Korr turned, aimed, and fired. The slug caught the battle droid in the neck, disconnecting torso and head. Reassessing, he fired again, aiming to immobilize this time. The human man holding the blaster rifle found it in two pieces, he looked back up to see a grimy and faintly red glove smashing into his face. He fell to the ground, screaming and clutching his broken nose. Korr saw the other battle droid lying disabled on the ground and Neil rolling one of his shoulders.

“That things got a blazing recoil.” said the kid.

“I noticed.” Korr heaved the now captured human male to his feet, disregarding the pitiful whimpering, “We’re gonna take this guy back to Gates at the RV. See if we can’t get some answers from him.”

“Whatever you say, Specter.”

“Let’s go.” Korr walked his prisoner at gunpoint. He wanted to know who exactly was attacking them and why. Blackjack’s usual “Doesn’t matter why, just shoot ‘em” rule didn’t really apply here. They needed some hard numbers as to how well the rebels knew their position and plans. And that…

Something moved in the underbrush. Korr turned around faster than a corellian sand panther, to see a flight of birds settling on a tree.

“He’s making a run for it!”

Ryan turned around, the human man was running, hoping to escape. Korr fired. His aim, however good, didn’t matter when the rebel tried to jump over a fallen tree. Hard metal ripped through the man’s leg, tearing through important muscle and emerging through the kneecap, leaving permanent damage that could only be repaired through cybernetics. Ryan had missed his original target, the spine. The man was pleading now, but Ryan had already made up his mind. If the target ran once, they’d run twice. A hollow point bullet silenced the man’s pleadings in a splattering of gore.
?“Alright, we’re done here.”

“Right…” Neil followed him off into the swamp.

Five minutes of heavy running later, they found the RV point. Blackjacks and various members of the other squads  hung around, cleaning and checking weapons. Gates stood in the middle.

“Nice to see you in one piece, Sarge.”

OOC:

WC: 2,068

Orobos stood in the cockpit behind the pilots staring at the information displayed on a hud on the window. The usual dull hum of the ship drifting through space was replaced by a slightly higher pitched whine as the engines were pushed to their full extent. They were close enough to their target that hyperspace couldn't be used but just far enough to put an extreme sense of urgency in the air.

Orobos was to accompany Blackjack on this mission but due to re-assignment issues he had been delayed several hours by bureaucrats. Now he sat with a squad of stormtroopers which had been hastily dispatched the moment intelligence had picked up on the emergency beacons. Orobos had managed to tag along, grabbing his modified crimson armour, weapons and some survival equipment.

The numbers at the corner of the heads up display showed the kilometers ticking down in their thousands every second. They were nearing their destination. The ship was already cruising over swamps as the kilometer counter dropped into the hundreds and the ship slowed.

"20 seconds," Orobos said to the squad leader who had just stepped up behind him. A Sergeant Dehnt.

"Squad, I want up stacked up and ready to disembark at the ramp, 5 seconds," the sergeant said facing his squad.

Eight troopers in white were standing waiting for the drop off into suspected hostile territory. Orobos closed the cockpit door and walked over with the sergeant as the ramp began to open. The ship was hovering about three meters above the ground letting the troopers jump out while allowing for the shuttle to make a quick clearing of the landing zone.

"Clear the LZ," The Dehnt ordered making a swinging motion with his right arm.

The squad followed his instruction moving into a circle around the trees, knee deep in the swamp. The all clear was given as a loud bang echoed across the otherwise silent mire. The shock wave hit the squad and they all looked up to the see the shuttle flaming. A stream of lasers followed it to ground some 2 kilometers away from the point they were occupying.

"Shuttle, do you copy?" Orobos said into his headpiece switching through several channels that might be used by the shuttle.

"We need to get out there and check it out," the sergeant said.

"Yea and we need to find out what kind of hostiles we're dealing with," Orobos replied.

Moving out the stormtroopers followed the NCOs in through the mist that filled the gap between the trees. There wasn't any vegetation apart from the trees themselves and gave a barren feeling to the land.

"I'm picking up movement," Orobos said as a small alert sent a red warning across his visor, pointing of north to some disturbance.

"Yeah me too, from the opposite angle," the corporal said over the radio.

Red bolts crossed the clearing cutting through the squad and sending all the stormtroopers running for cover.