Civil War/Act 2

"Ground units, prepare to deploy," a clone said over the ship's radio.

Dodge put one foot onto Siege Platoon's gunship, and waved a hand, gesturing for them to get on. "Come on, Siege Platoon, load up! Load up!" His voice showed clarity in his leadership role as he yelped orders at the members of Siege Platoon. Viera followed the members of Siege Platoon onto the gunship, and Dodge said to her, "Ready for this, general?"

She could only shrug as she stepped onto the gunship, "I suppose so, commander."

A clone trooper with unique blue markings, a bandoleer, and a rocket launcher strapped to his back examined Viera and asked her, "Ever been in a battle, general?"

Viera looked at him and noticed that he carried a Z-6 rotary blaster cannon, a clone minigun. She shook her head and replied, "Not with a military force, no. As a matter of fact, not in a war, I haven't."

"Charger," another clone said in a voice that clearly showed he had a deep respect for the Jedi. "The general doesn't need any of your questions."

But the clone trooper with the minigun quickly responded, "Oh, really, Evade?"

"Boys," Viera intervened, "it's really okay. I wouldn't mind getting to know you if we're going to be working together."

Charger smirked beneath his helmet and elbowed Evade, "See now, Evade?"

The Asheran grinned and turned to Dodge, who was holding his helmet at his side, smiling back at her. "They're a fun unit to lead, general."

"Yes, I can see that," she chuckled.

"General?"

Viera turned to face a clone trooper whose blue markings were different from the others; on his left chestplate was a plus symbol, and on his helmet a circle with a slash running through it. He wore a pack on his back, and his face showed that he was ready for action. He saluted to her and she said, "Trooper?"

"Just came to introduce myself, general, as I saw it fit. I am designated six-six-seven-two, I am the platoon's medic."

She immediately recognized the dignity in his voice. There was no pride in it, but it emanated a sense of honor. She asked him, "Do you have a name, soldier?"

"Eh, no, general. But everyone likes to call me Snapshot," he replied, lowering his arm.

"Well, Snapshot is what I shall refer to you as. Is that okay with you?"

He hesitated for a moment, before shaking the thought away and nodding, "Yes, general."

After their conversation ended, the gunship's radio turned on and their pilot began to speak, "Welcome aboard, Siege Platoon. I'll be your pilot this fine Balmorran afternoon. You may call me--"

"Cut to the chase, Angel," Dodge interrupted. He sounded as though he was anxious to get into battle, when in reality he only wanted it to be finished. Not because he disliked combat, but he was anxious to claim victory for the Republic.

"Whatever you say, commander. Prepare for deployment, we're taking off shortly," Angel told them. The radio turned off and the members of Siege Platoon began to shift their positions in the gunship.

A few moments later, bars supported by beams dropped from the ceiling of the gunship to just above their heads, and about half of the clones on the gunship took their respective brace-bar.

"Haven't used one of these before," Viera admitted.

Charger looked at her and said enthusiastically, "Oh, they're easy, you'll get used to them quick."

"You weren't on Geonosis?" Dodge asked. "I thought all the Jedi were."

She shook her head, "Nope, many of us stayed behind on Coruscant. Some of the Padawan learners did go to Geonosis though. A friend I met once or twice at the Jedi Temple went there, his name was Zay."

"Hm, I did not know that."

Dodge then turned to a clone wearing blue macrobinoculars, who stood beside him, holding a brace-bar with one hand, and a DC-15A blaster rifle in the other. "Flare, when we land be ready to pinpoint the locations of droids."

"Yes, sir," Flare nodded, lifting his DC-15A in a battle-ready stance.

Suddenly the entire Valiance shook as loud explosions were heard outside, especially along the bow hangar. The ship's radio turned on once again, and the words that followed had an urgent tone to them, "Gunships, prepare for liftoff! Bay doors opening."

Everyone in Siege Platoon took their brace-bars as the gunship doors closed. A few moments later the gunship lifted off the ground, tilting forward just a little bit, and after several seconds the gunship took off at full speed. They turned forty-five degrees to the left and flew out the hangar bay doors, straight into the battle that was taking place above Balmorra. Outside they heard the firing of the Valiance 's turbolasers, and the explosions of vulture droids and V-19 Torrent starfighters alike.

Dodge lifted his arm and spoke into his wrist comm, "Eagle? Do you copy?"

"I'm here, sir, and I know what you're going to say. The path is being cleared, but they just keep coming at us. Their resistance is tough," Eagle responded, followed by an explosion that was heard both through the radio and physically. He must have been nearby.

"Have we heard from Os--"

The gunship shook madly as explosions occurred. Dodge nearly lost his balance, but held onto his brace-bar tightly and continued to speak, "Have we heard from Osprey?"

Before Eagle could give his response, another clone spoke, "This is Osprey, reporting. We encountered droid fighters down below, but we're out now. We'll escort the gunships, just make for the surface."

"Understood. All gunships make for Balmorra," Dodge replied before lowering his arm and turning to Viera. "Into the fray, general."

Viera let out a small laugh, "Never heard that before."

Enemy flak threatened to shoot them down, but the gunships pressed onward as they began to enter the planet's atmosphere. From the cockpit of their gunship, Angel could now see the mountain ranges of Balmorra, many of their peaks topped with snow. Inside the gunship, the lights above them turned red, indicating they were preparing to touch down. One thing Dodge had noticed was that the flak had not dissipated, and instead only rose as they were being fired at from various mountain peaks.

Charger lifted his blaster cannon with one arm, holding his brace-bar with the other, and he yelled over the blasts outside, "Get ready to blast some clankers, boys!"

"Building up those hashes will be great," Flare said to them. He adjusted the binoculars on his helmet and made sure his DC-15A blaster rifle was loaded with its ammunitions. He lifted it in the air, its end pointed toward the ceiling, the trigger at his shoulder level.

Evade began to tap the side of his helmet as he muttered, "I got static in my comms."

"Well, fix it! We'll be landing within the minute," Angel said over the radio.

From inside the cockpit, Angel could now see the Balmorran capital city of Bin Prime. "I'll try and get to the plains beyond the city."

After he said this, an explosion was heard just outside the gunship as cannons from the city shot down another. Haar'chak, Dodge thought to himself. "Watch the enemy flak, Angel! We are the ones that need to carry the rest of our unit."

Their gunship began to tilt from one side to the other as Angel steered it away from blaster fire. Although, no matter how much he avoided it, he knew he would eventually be shot down. He pressed a button and told the rest of the gunship pilots, "Everyone, double back! Their defenses are too strong, we'll land in the mountains."

"Angel, it's better to keep going than turn back!" Droidpopper exclaimed as he tightened his grip on his brace-bar.

"I understand, sir, but even if we pass the city we'll just end up getting shot down. Our best bet will be to turn around and land in the mountains."

But Droidpopper had been right as their gunship suddenly titled to the right as ship's respective wing was shot off by an anti-aircraft cannon. Everyone in Siege Platoon tightened their grips on the brace-bars above them as the gunship plummeted toward the surface, in the mountains. Angel tried his best to move the gunship away from a mountain peak they were about to crash into, and while he successfully avoided crashing into it, their left wing got caught, and flew off, causing them to drop at an oblique angle.

After the next few seconds that felt like minutes to Dodge, the gunship crashed onto the ground, skidding across the grassy surface, leaving a large trail of dirt and dust clouds. The gunship slowly came to a stop once they reached the base of the next mountain, the rocky surface stopping their skid. Inside the gunship, Dodge managed to maintain his balance by keeping a tight grip on his brace-bar. Once he let go, his knees gave in and he squatted down.

Several of the members of Siege Platoon had fallen over, but Dodge was relieved to see that none had perished. Viera managed to keep her balance, through both extreme physical training and other means Dodge could not think of. Her legs appeared to be shaking once she let go of her brace-bar, but she took a deep breath and asked him, "We all breathing?"

"Yes, general."

A loud boom appeared outside, followed by the sound of blaster fire hitting the floor of the gunship - it had fallen onto its right side. Dodge looked up to the left door of the gunship, and told a clone trooper who had just recovered, "Swiper, help me get this door open."

"Sir, yes, sir." The clone trooper, Swiper, dropped the DC-15s he had been holding and moved to a position where he could reach the doors above. The two clone troopers then pulled the blast doors open slowly, the metal creaking as they did. Red blaster bolts appeared overhead, and the sun shone down on them.

"That's good enough. Everyone, up! Flare, you ready?" Dodge asked Flare, giving him a hand.

Flare took Dodge's hand and pulled himself up. He took his DC-15A blaster rifle and nodded to him, "I'll see if I can pinpoint their locations. Could be difficult given the amount of blaster fire up there."

"Once I can get up there, I'll recall the fifty-sixth to regroup at our position. I can't seem to contact them from down here, though," said Dodge, while trying to contact the other gunships.

Viera lifted her arm and pressed a button on her wrist comm. In an attempt to contact the 56th, she spoke desperately, "Hello? Does anybody read?"

"It's no use, general," Droidpopper shook his head, lowering his arm after trying himself. "They must be jamming our signal."

Flare let out a small laugh, "Well, we can always fire a flare when we get up there." He began to climb out of the gunship as Charger palmed his face.

"I wanted to make that joke, Flare," he muttered, clearly unhappy.

"Yeah, right."

Flare pulled himself up and poked his head out of the gunship to see what he could find. The droids had ceased fire, so he took this short advantage to climb out of the gunship and make for cover, right as the droids returned to opening fire, particularly on him. He pulled down his macrobinoculars, and immediately his helmet's HUD changed, the vision through is visor turning green. He peaked around the corner of the gunship, taking note of the locations of each droid. At that moment, he saw a blaster bolt flying straight at his head, so he brought it back behind cover as the bolt flew by him and made contact with the rocks beside them.

Inside the gunship, Viera took her lightsaber and said, "I have an idea. Flare!"

"I'm here, general!" Flare called back among the loud noises of blaster fire.

"Stand back from the floor of the gunship! I will cut a hole so the rest of us can get out."

Beneath his helmet, Flare grinned, "Good thinking, general!" He stepped away from the center of the gunship's floor as a blue blade coming from Viera's lightsaber appeared through it. It began moving in a circular path, creating a hole in the gunship. As the lightsaber moved, burn marks followed, and soon a circle of scorched metal was what remained as from behind, Viera called upon the Force to move the metal. She was first to climb out, giving Flare a smile as she did.

"Good work, General Cacete," Dodge complimented as he climbed out. He then moved his hands to below his waist, where on either side were two holsters holding DC-17 hand blasters. He pulled them out of their holsters and held them at shoulder height. "Flare, where have we got clankers waiting for us?"

Flare gestured for Dodge to follow as he poked his head around the corner, pointing along the face of a mountain across the valley. "There are B1s sniping along ridges on that mountain face. At least two mini cannons."

"Alright, let's get to work," Dodge said, stepping out from his cover and moving his eyes about, locating every droid he could see in plain sight on the mountain face. He had learned to quickly locate enemies through quick eye movement at the ARC Training Program not long before. After a quick second he opened fire on the droids. Because of their range away from the droids, he missed several of the shots, but a few lucky bolts hit droids straight in the head, their defenses slowly thinning. As Dodge fired at the droids, several other blue blaster bolts appeared, flying at the droids and destroying several of them. The commander moved back behind cover to see several members of Siege Platoon firing at the droid forces.

Satisfied with the "progress" they were making, Dodge jogged behind the gunship, behind their troops, and watched as Viera came around the corner, deflecting laser bolts as she did. She ducked beneath cover and tapped the cockpit glass with her hand, "Angel's in there."

"What?" In disbelief, Dodge walked around Viera, with his head low, and peaked inside the cockpit. Angel was indeed inside it, unconscious and unscathed by the droid's blaster fire. The crash appeared to have taken him out. "We need to get him out of there."

"I won't have time to cut a hole without getting shot down. I am concerned that we won't get him in time," Viera looked down as if guilty.

Dodge placed a hand on her shoulder and said, "Then you cover me while I get him out of there."

She looked up at him, and nodded - completely unsure of what he was about to do. She stood up and leaped over the gunship, beginning to deflect lasers. Dodge holstered his pistols and gestured for Snapshot to follow. After a quick nod, he followed Dodge around the gunship, shooting down droids as Dodge knelt over the glass of the cockpit. With no time to get into it cleanly, he punched the glass with great force, and it shattered. Several shards fell into the cockpit, several bouncing off Angel. Snapshot handed Dodge his DC-15s blaster, who took it and protected the medic from blaster fire as he reached into the cockpit, placing an arm around Angel's shoulder. He lifted the pilot's arm and placed it around his own shoulder, and he pulled him out, several glass shards falling as he lifted Angel. He jumped off the gunship, slowly, and walked around to the back.

"We got him, general!" Dodge shouted at Viera, who had moved up several yards now.

"Understood, Dodge! See to it that he's actually breathing!"

Nodding to Viera, who was currently occupied with deflecting laser bolts, Dodge vaulted over the gunship and landed behind it. He walked to the hole that Viera had cut - the scorch marks were now cold and nonexistent - and found Snapshot laying Angel down inside.

Snapshot looked up at Dodge, with one hand on Angel's shoulder to make sure he did not fall over, and he said, "He's going to make it, commander. We'll have our pilot back soon, I think he just hit his head on the controls once we crashed." As he explained what he figured had happened, he knocked on his helmet, to simulate "hitting his head."

"Good work, Snapshot. I'm leaving you in charge of him," Dodge moved away from the hole and to Charger, who had been firing with his minigun at droids just beyond his cover. From behind the cover provided by the gunship, Dodge pointed at the mountain face and said, "Charger, I need you to finish them off."

Charger chuckled slightly as he moved behind cover, pressing his back against the gunship floor. He set down his blaster cannon and looked at Dodge, pointing down to his minigun and saying, "Don't let anyone touch this." Then he took the rocket launcher strapped to his back and peaked around the corner, a blaster bolt barely missing his head. He seemed untouched by the fact that he had nearly died right there. He then stepped out from behind his cover and aimed at the droids, but right before he fired he aimed towards the peak of the mountain.

"What are you doing, Charge--?!" Before Dodge could finish Charger fired the rocket launcher.

The rocket flew at a great speed towards the peak of the mountain ahead. Knowing something would go wrong, Dodge prepared to scold Charger, but the clone trooper only let out a chuckle as he turned to his commander. Dodge continued to watch the rocket, a large explosion appearing once it made contact with the mountain peak. Akin to an avalanche, boulders fell from the peak and upon the several battle droids that yelled obnoxious orders to run. But they were too slow, and ended up being crushed by the piles of rocky debris.

Siege Platoon stepped out from their cover and into the open. Viera gave Charger a warm, inviting smile. "Nice work, Charger."

Flare stepped beside Charger and punched his arm lightly.

"Indeed. Good work," Dodge said in what sounded like an unhappy manner. "I was prepared to reprimand you."

Charger took off his helmet, revealing his face: it was like any other clone, except his head was bald. Above and beneath his eyes were red tattoos that appeared to be shaped like fangs; they were positioned in the same place as the fang-shaped paint on his helmet. "Was I going to make you angry, commander?" He gave Dodge a devious grin, which the commander only waved away.

"Be glad I've learned to deal with you, Charger," Dodge took off his helmet. They noticed a small smile upon his face. When he saw that they were watching, he put on a stern face, and told Flare, "Can you get a signal up in the sky?"

"A flare, sir?" Flare asked, in an almost mischievous voice.

"Yes, Flare. A flare."

The 56th's surviving gunships - just over a dozen - arrived at the scene after a few minutes. The gunships were landed in a circle around the 56th, providing cover from all sides should they be attacked. Osprey and about five other Torrent starfighters escorted them there, and the clone pilot left his fighter to meet Dodge. He began with a salute, and proceeded by saying, "We got most of them here. There was quite a fight up there."

"Give me a casualty report," Dodge ordered.

"At least five gunships lost. One was shot down, and has survivors - somewhere in these mountains. We sent an evac to get them out of there," Osprey replied, placing his hands behind his back. "About forty-seven men in all."

Dodge grunted, "Haar'chak. So many soldiers put to sleep in such little time."

"I suppose you could say that."

Snapshot and another clone trooper medic walked beside Dodge, between the two clones was a stretcher carrying Angel. He was still unconscious. Dodge gave him a glance, and then nodded to Snapshot, and the two clones proceeded to carry Angel onto a gunship.

"Osprey, I need that gunship taken back to the Valiance. Angel needs medical attention," Dodge gestured to Angel, just before Osprey nodded his head and saluted.

"Understood, sir. We'll leave now."

Osprey climbed into his V-19 torrent starfighter once again, gave a salute to the members of the 56th, and lifted off. Snapshot rejoined Dodge as they watched the LAAT/i gunship and Osprey's squadron take off for the Valiance.

Viera crossed her arms and said, "Toras shiran ti'vil." She spoke this in a very calm manner.

"Pardon, general?" Dodge appeared confused.

The Jedi General looked at him and nodded her head in apology, "My apologies, Dodge. It's Ash'shala."

"Sorry, General Cacete, I am not aware of what Ash'shala is."

She could only smile at his puzzlement, "The language of Ashera. My homeworld."

Dodge removed his helmet, holding it at his side. "I suppose I understand, general."

Deciding to reaffirm their mission, Viera asked him, "Commander, what do you know about the Balmorrans? Er, the Republic Balmorrans, I mean."

Realizing her wish, Dodge stood up straight and replied, "Nothing, general. All I know is that they're situated somewhere in these mountains."

"Very good," she said. "We'll find them, and then--"

A large explosion occurred just outside their circle of gunships. The clones and Jedi were caught unaware as blaster bolts began to fly in their direction, immediately shooting down few of the soldiers present.

Immediately after they took some casualties, Dodge called out, "Make for cover!" The commander took his DC-17 hand blasters and ran towards a gunship, performing a somersault roll along the way. When he came up, he was behind the open gunship blast door, and immediately began firing at B1 battle droids that were advancing on their position from the mountains.

"Watch your fire!" Viera called out. "They have Balmorrans!"

Dodge had just noticed that too. Among the battle droid ranks were Separatist Balmorrans; those that the 56th did not want to kill, for the sake of their mission.