OOC:

Although you could probably figure this out from the post, I might as well spare you the trouble. This post takes place before the QW, meaning just a lowly trooper, Private First Class

CAPTURED!

The captured Private First Class looked over his captors, cursing each of them. They looked like wraiths in their black shirts, black pants, black balaclavas, black custom helmets, and black gloves. Four rebels held him in a delta formation. Of course, there were probably more rebels out of his site holding another perimeter around him.

Curse-ation! Did I just have to walk all the way to the target just to check if I had made the shot? Why didn’t I just go over and use those excellent binoculars? I guess I was too excited, but the shot itself! That was at extreme range of the A280! It was also perfectly on target! Of course, I was excited! Yet, I should’ve booked that cursed test from Gates today, and, voila! I don’t get captured. But I just had to book the test for yesterday. I should’ve have taken the extra day to study and taken the damn thing today. Now look, I’m captured by second-rate rebels! Oh, well, what’s done is done. If I could get my armor or my A280 back I could escape. Nothing would be like it if I could get both back. I think the guy in front has my A280 and the guy behind me has the armor. I could wait for Gates, but how would I explain this? And, it’d take him time to find me... He’d start tonight... And, as always, mission takes priority. He has four days before he’ll cut losses and go on to Liberty Station. Four days... I have to escape before they can escape into the hills, otherwise it’ll take more than that to find me.

Crest paused physically for a moment, contemplating his situation.

“Keep moving, Stormie,” a voice growled out from behind him.

A sharp jab with a rifle stock accompanied the order. Crest felt his balance shift that fatal bit forward. He instinctively tried to bring his hands forward from behind him. Then he remembered the binds on his wrists.

CURSES!

With that, he landed his ungraceful dive into the mud, his mouth landing into a particularly pudding-like spot.

Deciding his situation could get no better than now, he raised his mouth out of the mud, using his neck, and proceeded to complain the ears off the rebels, “OUCH! Do you have even a sense of decency!?! YOU-”

The response was a boot, which was raised up and smashed down... on Crest’s mouth.

Alright, I was wrong. My situation could be very worse.

“Aw, come on, boss, let’s make camp here,” complained the rebel on point guard.

With a sigh, the rebel behind Crest, acceded the point, “Fine. Leave the stormie in the mud; that’s as good as he deserves.”

Crest lay with the mud, using his neck to keep his mouth out of the mud. As the rebels retired into their tents, Crest realized the futility of keeping mouth of the mud the entire night, and he gave up. He was sound asleep by the time his mouth entered the mud.

--------------------

A voice whispered to him, “Get up! That is an order from a Lance Corporal to a Private First Class!”

Crest shook himself awake, to a red SCOPE helmet two inches away.

“Dammit, Kilroy, didn’t anyone teach you to be polite when waking someone up?... Sir,” he tacked on to the end.

Ignoring his question, Kilroy responded, “Come on, we’ve got to get back to the boss.”

Crest pushed himself up, his binds have been cut by Kilroy, and scraped off the hardened mud off his face.

“I’m going to get my armor back,” Crest declared.

“No. We’re going to go back to Gates. We can then assault the rebels as a squad.”

“Hell, no, I’m going to get my armor and weapon and wreak some havoc before I go back... Sir,” Crest stated, anger at the rebels boiling up inside of him.

“No, we’re going back to- Dammit, come back, you fool.”

Crest quietly slipped into the shadow, relying on his infiltration training to hide him. It was night, and, with the shadows falling over him, he knew Kilroy could not follow him. The rebel commander and torturer had set up his tent in the middle, and Crest bet that his weapon and armor was there. In addition to that, he had a certain revenge to extract for having his face stuffed with mud for a few hours.

The stars shone over him, illuminating his path just enough to have an idea where he was going. Crest quietly pressed himself against a tree trunk at the edge of the camp. A ten-meter clearing of cover separated him and the commander’s tent. The tents of the other rebels flanked the clearing, creating a sort of corridor. Crest slipped around the trunk of the tree and carefully snuck towards his target. It seemed as if each blade of grass screamed in pain as Crest slowly depressed them on his way. The air seemed to scream ‘Intruder!’ to the rebels. Yet, the noises were faint and the night was silent.

“Hey, Irik. Hey, Irik, wake up. I thought I heard something,” emanated a voice from a nearby tent. Crest froze in his spot.

Irik responded sleepily, “There are plenty of bugs out there, of course you’re going to hear stuff.”

“But this was something big, like a human.”

“As if the prisoner escaped? Ha! This may be your first mission but it surely isn’t ours. We’ve covered our tracks especially well this time. Don’t worry ’bout it.”

“If you say so...”

Crest paused for a few moments, waiting for the man’s suspicions to die down before starting again. Within thirty seconds, he silently slid into position beside the main tent. Emptying his mind of emotions, as he usually did before combat, Crest slipped into the tent, grabbing a short piece of rope. He quietly made an adjustable noose from it and moved so that he was standing above the sleeping rebel commander. In one quick, fluid motion, he placed it around the commander’s neck and violently tightened it. The commander jumped awake and clawed at the rope, desperate for a breath of oxygen. Crest, having leverage, pulled the rope tighter and kept it tight, as the commander struggled to get it off. Thirty seconds later, the commander fell unconscious. Crest tightened the rope one last time and tied it to its spot, leaving the commander to suffocate to his death. Rolling his shoulders, he moved over, donned his armor, and slung his A280 onto his back. A quartet of bulky oil containers lay beside where the armor had been. A smile came to his lips as he thought of one blazing plan.

--------------------

Crest quietly emptied the last of the oil in the container in the middle of the camp. A quick walk brought him out of the camp. As he reached the edge of the clearing, he spun around and brought his A280 up.  A wide grin plastered over his face as he lined up his scope on the oil. He gently squeezed the trigger.

OOC:

Dying prompt.

The lightsaber slashed up and severed the arm of trooper D-117B58. With a sharp pain, he stumbled off of the Coruscanti footbridge, and began the endless fall, which to him, would seem a life time.

It had all began with Order 66. A simple order. Two words, but a ship-load of consequences. Trooper D-117B58 was a clone trooper, an artificial soldier to the Galactic Republic. He and his squad had been ordered to dispatch a fleeing jedi. Once again, a simple order. They chased him down, and cornered him on a footbridge. A bridge above a several kilometer drop to the ground below. Trooper D-117B58 was ordered to attack, a simple order. The jedi defended himself, cutting trooper D-117B58's arm off in the process. Trooper D-117B58 stumbled and fell off the bridge toward his death. Orders were simple, but death, however, was not.

Now trooper D-117B58 was falling rapidly through the air. Close to 160 kilometer per mile at the moment. Still fully conscious, he was, to his temporary dismay, aware that he was going to die. Clonetroopers were literraly made and bred to fight, and eventually to die, but this didn't make them emotionless. And as trooper D-117B58 was aware of, they did have emotions.

The air was rushing past trooper D-117B58, but to him, it seemed relatively quiet. Air speeders were flying in the distance, and Coruscant's moon was reflecting nicely. Solemnly. Silently. He felt no pain in his arm, it was currently the least he was worrying about at the moment. Where would he go when he finally hit the ground? Would it hurt immensely? Would he feel anything at all?

Though, it is interesting to note that trooper D-117B58 did not feel sad. Yes, he was feeling emotions, but these emotions were too complex to describe. Almost as if solemness and joy were mixed together. Why was he feeling joy? Why was he feeling anything at all? Wouldn't he be scared?

He looked around him. The ground was coming closer and closer. His short life was beginning to go by in his mind. His training on Kamino. His induction into the Republic Army, and finally two words that were burned into his mind. Order 66. He figured he didn't have much time left on this neverending fall. The ground was close now, and suddenly, he was feeling something odd. Something undescribably in the situation.

That something was the warmth of death. A warmth that overcame him as he hit the ground. Trooper D-117B58 died immediately on impact, but his feelings, his aura, his essence remained. They remained indescribable. They remained complex. They remained un-simple.

Orders were simple, but death, however, was not.

OOC:

Word Count: 445. I tried something new with this. With the emotions and stuff. I look forward to feedback.

OOC:

Battle!

A hot gust blew past Sergeant Konuk, but he didn't feel it, fully shielded in his Stormtrooper armor. He looked up to see a vast skyline of medium sized skyscrapers. Their metallic surfaces sparkled briefly in the sunlight, before a cloud moved in, blocking the sun, and darkening his surroundings. Beside him, however, were medium sized houses and apartments. Their occupants either away or dead, casting the feeling of a ghost town. Which in essence, it was.

Behind him were 9 figures, fully clad in stormtrooper armor. They were his squadmates, and he was their squad leader. Together, they made up Sovengarde Squad, an assault squad for the Galactic Empire. Currently, the entire city was being invaded, and Sovengarde's mission was to capture a plaza at the East end of town. From there, reinforcements could be easily brought in. In short, it was a foothold for the battle.

In the Sergeant's grasp was a legendary T-21 light repeating blaster. This weapon was the heaviest standard issue weapon that could be given out to troopers. Despite its name, it was not light. With a barrel as wide as a fist, and a rounds-per-minute count that would even scare wookies, this weapon could pack in a punch. A big punch. The rest of his squad, however, we lightly armed with the standard E-11 blaster rifle. That was not to say that they couldn't fight. This squad was one of the most experience in the Galactic Empire which was why they were chosen for this task.

"300 meters from the plaza," Konuk said into his microphone, "Hold at about 50 meters ahead."

They continued their steady pace down the road, their eyes out for any movement. They stopped at the 50 meter mark, and Konuk began to give orders.

"Gabell and Ben, take the right side of the road. You two, take the left. Stay behind cover and advance 100 meters. From there, cover our advance," he ordered, the years of battle and experience inferred from his deep, militaristic voice.

The four stormtroopers immediately followed his orders by advancing along the buildings of the road. They ducked into alleys and doorways, covering the other's advance. Once they made their position, the rest of the squad broke into the road, running like a herd of dingoes. They could have slowly made their way along the walls, but this method was a hell of a lot faster.

About 40 meters into their run, all of hell broke loose. Suddenly, an explosion rocketed from Gabell and Ben's position, sending them and shrapnel flying into the air. A second later, a string of red laser fire flew out from several windows ahead of the group. Sovengarde's squad members responed by diving towards the nearest source of cover. Though, some didn't make it. A blast from one of the windows smashed into a trooper named Greg, frying and melting his lower body into a bloody, smoldering mess.

"Frak!" Konuk yelled, hiding in a doorway, "Its an ambush! How did they know we were coming?"

"I don't know," the Assistant Squad Leader called back, "but we better do something fast!"

Konuk pulled a lever back on his rifle, and pumped a few huge blasts at a window. They smashed into wall which in turn spewed metal and shrapnel in all directions. Unfortunately, the ambusher was not hit, and he continued to put intense pressure on the squad mates.

"They seem to have E-Webs!" called out a squad mate, as he was firing at one of the windows.

Suddenly, with a huge bang, an artillery shell came crashing down into a building beside the squad leader. The metal and brick collapsed, stirring dust into the air. Konuk dived out of the way just as one of the walls fell in. Then another artillery shell came down, followed by another.

"Artillery! Get down!"

The shells came down in rapid succession causing massive explosions of shrapnel and debris. Building tumbled, walls shattered, and dirt filled the air. Another shell came down in the middle of the road, causing a large smoldering crater where a the assistant squad leader had once been. Konuk watched in horor as one of his squad members flew high into the air as a shell landed right near her feet. He would have to find some place to hide, and fast!

He bolted forward toward one of the enemy houses. The artillery, he knew, wouldn't hit there. Running as fast as he could, he pulled out his pistol and smashed in the front door. Instinctevely, he fired several bolts at any movement he saw, and before he knew it, the enemy soldier was on the ground as dead as stone.

He grabbed a hold of the E-Web blaster and fired directly into the house across the street, which had held another E-Web. A series of lightning fast bolts shot out of the barrel, and entered directly into the window where Konuk heard a scream of pain.

Two down, one to go.

Exiting the building, he grabbed two of his grenades, cooked them for a moment and lobbed them straight towards the third enemy building. They exploded on impact, sending metallic debris directly into the enemy.

Though, his effort had been wasted.

Several miles away, an enemy artillery gunner loaded and fired a single round. The gunner had aimed improperly, sending the round to where his friendly soldiers would be, or in this case, where Konuk was. The shell flew high into the air, covering miles of distance before falling right where Konuk stood. His mangled body was sent  rocketing into the air. It landed as an unrecognizable heap of blood, fried armor, and debris.

The veteran had finally been slain. Slain in one of the most simplest of all of his battles. And ironically, he was slain by the mistake of his enemy, but this story, like many others, would be lost. No one would remember the heroism of Sergeant Koluk.

No one would remember how he was slain.

OOC:

Word Count: 1,001. I think I ended it kind of sillily. Feedback will be looked forward too.

OOC:

Battle!

“Captain! Captain!”

Captain Fi’ik looked over at the rushing messenger.

“Can’t I get a pleasant moment off duty?” he remarked, thoroughly annoyed at this latest interruption.

“This interception has been marked for immediate routing to you, sir. Top priority, no delays of any kind, sir.”

Fi’ik grabbed the proffered packet and glanced down at the short summary on the first page.

“Damn! What assets do we have there?”

“Full garrison of army elements, four squads of stormtroopers, sir.”

It took him a moment to calculate the odds.

“They stand no chance. Do we have anything else we can use?”

“Not much, sir. There’s only one SCOPE trooper, specialization in infiltration, off duty currently in the city.”

The choice pained him. Here he had been two seconds ago, annoyed that he’d been called while off-duty; could he bring himself to do the same to the trooper? On the other hand, the base stood no chance in holding its own. It was one of the most poorly designed in the Empire. Could the SCOPE trooper do it? Could he tip the scales? Could he make that critical difference?

“Tell me more about this trooper. Quickly also, if you don’t mind, we don’t have a moment to spare.”

“Uh, Lance Corporal Crest, Assistant Squad Leader of the Third Squad, First Platoon, First Company, First Battalion, First Regiment. He received infiltration training before his first mission. He went through hell in his first mission, requiring heavy reconstructive surgery. Everything else is classified, including the reasons behind his recent promotion and any further missions.”

Fi’ik contemplated the situation for only a moment.

“Do it. We haven’t a moment to spare.”

--------------------

“Hey, Oilik. I wonder... is that him?”

Private First Class Oilik shook himself out of his reverie.

“Yeah, buddy?”

“Doesn’t that guy kinda match this holo of the requested trooper?”

Oilik did not even look at the holo. One glance at the target, and the idea was thrown out of his mind.

“Did you miss the fact that he’s a bloody giant at about one point nine meters? He can’t be trained in infiltration. You’ll do better trying to teach a bantha to run.”

“But look at the holo once! He matches it! Perfectly!”

Oilik examined the holo.

“How the bloody hell? It’d be damn near impossible to train him in infiltration. Alright, fine, we’ll try him.”

Taking a deep breath, Oilik briskly walked over.

“Lance Corporal Crest?” he queried.

Crest sharply turned around.

“Yes? I thought I was supposed to be off duty?”

Oilik snapped off a quick salute.

“Private First Class Oilik, sir. It’s important, sir. You’ve been requested to help us out.”

“What happened?”

“No idea, sir. The base is suddenly on high alert, and we were sent out to find you and bring you back, if you consented, for an emergency briefing and deployment.”

Crest glanced over at a beautiful, raven-haired woman, who was watching the events with a concerned look.

“Sorry, Aieya...”

After a quick flash of anger in her eyes at Oilik, she silently nodded.

Oilik suddenly realized that the displeasure of the Lance Corporal was the least of concerns right now.

“Uh, sir? Shall we get going, um, like as in right now?”

Crest nodded once, a grin spreading over his face at the Private’s sudden display of fear.

--------------------

“Alright, Lance Corporal. Here’s the brief rundown, since we don’t have time for a full-scale briefing. An intercepted message indicates an on-going attack. Not an assault, mind you, not yet. They want to secure the codes for this base, and then attack before we can replace them. An infiltrator has been dispatched. We need to stop him, which is where you come in.”

“What can you give me? In equipment, floor plans, cameras, statuses, or anything for that matter.”

“Equipment, we should be able to equip you with Scout Trooper Armor, since we don’t have SCOPE armor. Weapon, E-11, unless you can find another weapon you like. Um, sidearm will have to be the Q2s5 Holdout blaster. Floor plans are over there on that desk. Cameras and statuses are over there.”

The commander brought an entire wall and a holoprojector to life with a wave of his hand. Crest fluidly stole command away from the commander.

“First thing, you need a perimeter around the servers. Set up directional anti-personnel into the vents. Scratch that, FILL the damn vents with the stuff. Next, deploy stormtroopers in and around the servers. Move army elements into successive spheres radiating out of the server. Cut any access to the server, be it wired or wireless, no matter the security of the connection. Constant reports, every five minutes, from everyone, starting this damned second! Get my armor and weapons, preferably A280, DLT-20A, or E-11, in that order. I have my own sidearm. Get three more people up here on the double.”

The commander jumped at Crest’s ‘advice’, which could be better classified as orders. The requested three arrived under one minute, with the equipment arriving thirty seconds after that. As Crest suited up, he tasked one person with making sure all the reports were in. The other two were tasked with checking the cameras. Crest subconsciously pushed the commander out of the tasks. It would have been excessively long since he had been tasked to working under such direct control. Crest bent over the floor plans and slowly examined and memorized them.

The commander increasingly grew anxious, nervous, and angry since, for all the activity, nothing was happening.

He could bear it no longer and angrily confronted Crest, “You were called here to do something! Get on it, and get me some results!”

While Crest could not bring himself to agree with the sentiment, he understood where the commander was coming from; Blackjack was exactly like this.

“Patience, sir, this is a game of chess with infinite stakes. Mind before brute strength, that’s why you brought me here, right?”

“This is not a game! I-”

“Unfortunately not, sir. Like it or not, this is a game of chess, and you must treat it as such.”

“Then whose turn is it?” the commander remarked sarcastically.

“Our move, but also their move.”

The commander remained thoroughly confused at Crest’s cryptic answer.

Crest explained, “Think of it as a literal chess game, except the players cannot see anything but their own pieces and moves. We can discover their pieces, know the effects of their moves on our pieces, but we cannot see their pieces until we discover them. Does not a player have a time limit on his move? It is our turn, and we must figure out their move and react before the time limit runs out. In the mean time, their move is still taking effect. So, it is both our move and their move.”

The commander fell silent, contemplating Crest’s explanation.

“What is the highest, adjacent building?” Crest asked.

The commander thought about it for just a section and then responded, “The ComTech building over to the east.”

Check.

“Alright, that’s his point of entry.”

“How? And how the hell do you know?”

“Ah, sorry, I meant that he used the building to get on the roof the base. And, it’s what I’d do.”

Crest lightly walked over to the holoprojector and switched it to the three-dimensional view of the vents. If the infiltrator was coming in from the roof, he had to have used a vent.

“Did any of your contractors realize that vents are never good for a military base? They put about fifteen trillion!”

“We’ll be rebuilding this as soon as another, smaller base is finished.”

A minute ticked away as Crest futilely tried to search for the elusive vent.

“Uh, sir? Position 36/b and Position 89/c have not sent it their reports.”

Check.

“Cameras!” Crest barked out, striding behind the two men assigned to the cameras.

“Position 36/b is normal.”

“Position 89/c is also normal.”

The commander jumped into the conversation, “How the hell can that be? If they’re normal, then why didn’t they send in their reports?”

Crest cut him off, “Very few infiltrators carry jammers. It prevents any radio communication about them, even if their cover if broken. But it does sometimes leave an inadvertent signature.”

Crest abruptly marched over to the holoprojector and pinpointed the two locations. There was only one vent in between them that led from there to the server. He waved the commander over.

“Alright, place two beacons, one here and one here.” Crest instructed, point at two opposite ends of a relatively long straight stretch in the vent. He continued, “Set explosives and another beacon here, in the middle. Get the detonator up here, on the double.”

“You can’t use expl-”

“Do you want the infiltrator dead or not?” Crest asked rhetorically.

The commander paused at the blunt answer and then nodded.

The minutes ticked away. The detonator came up, and the minutes continued to tick away into oblivion.

“You sure you chose the correct vent? And he isn’t going another way?”

“Don’t worry ’bout it.” I hope so...

Three more minutes marched into the record books.

“Beacon One has stopped transmitting.”

Check.

Half a minute ticked by.

“Beacon One is online.”

Fifteen seconds ticked off the clock. The commander grew agitated at the slowness of this game. Crest flipped the cap off the detonator. The red button gleamed, ready to be the messenger of destruction.

“Beacon Two is offline.”

Checkmate.

He depressed the detonator.

For such an insignificant act, the consequences were out of proportion. The sound of the explosion boomed into the ears of everybody at the base.

“Now, I believe I have a leave to finish.”

OOC:

I did take a more liberal meaning of 'battle' here. I decided to use the mind as a weapon in a one on one confontration between Crest and the now-dead infiltrator.

Also, I've finally broken the curse of the QW! WC: 1,588!

OOC:

Memory Loss

He stared at his...what were those called? There were two of them. He moved them into the area he could see. He flexed them and watched in fascination as the five branches off them responded by folding into a ball. 

They were attached to his...and what were those called? There were two of them.

Panic gripped his...what was that called? He felt it pounding in his chest.

Panic gripped it, as he searched for one piece of evidence that he was real. How could he be sure that this existence was real? If this wasn’t real, did it matter what he did?

The first thing he had noticed moved towards something on the middle of his existence. Out came a short, shiny thing.

He knew it would end this twisted reality. He did not oppose it but, instead, guided it on. It drove towards the pounding thing in the middle of his chest.

It slid through the skin, putting its tip to deadly use as it touched the pounding object.

OOC:

This is horrible. But I can't make it any better/longer.

Hint: This is possibly the epitome of what you should not do. XD