Several star systems away...

Ando Prime, Lambda Sector, Mid Rim.

Shade

He stormed forward, the continuous fire of his DC-15A only ever stopping when he was forced to skip over the limp form of one of his fallen brothers or stumble as artillery fire impacted near to his position, a fresh flurry of ice shards bouncing off his armor while the crunch of snow punctuated every step he took. All the while, red and blue blaster fire rushed back and forth around him, peppering his position and butchering a smattering of clones or clankers with each fresh volley. It was so thick that the sound of bolts whistling over and around his head were becoming akin to music to his ears and it already felt as if he'd been grazed more times than he could count. It was near sub-zero temperatures at the moment, but Shade and his men had been outfitted with winter gear for this fight, so they were only marginally cold rather than freezing to death. For once, Commander CT-7076 or 'Shade', envied the droids; they didn't have a concept of what it was to start feeling numb in one's extremities.

"RELODING!"

"COVERING FIRE!"

"MEDIC!"

Screams made by the same voice but coming from multiple different directions penetrated his helmet, reverberating in his ears, but he pushed on as fast as his feet could carry him. To his immediate left, he saw one of the medics dressed in the black and white of their unit trying to drag a soldier back to the hills of ice some two hundred meters to their rear, where the reserves were forming up and preparing to join the first wave in attempting to charge the objective. Shade knew he wouldn't be stopping there however, and would instead be taking that wounded man beyond the hills to the ice caves from whence they originally came, where the forward operating base including their current command center and field hospital were both set up. The medic, head low and body hunched to avoid incoming fire, spotted him coming and silently watched him speed passed whereupon he continued his duty, laboring to get his comrade out of enemy fire.

To his right, he saw another clone kneeling next to the body of one his dead brothers, shaking him and begging for him to just hold on a little longer though to Shade, it was clear to him the man was very much dead. The bereaved clone was heedless of it all, ignoring the streaks of red that threatened to take his own life with but one good shot or the dozens of still yet breathing brothers who ceaselessly flew towards the target just as Shade was even now, though they in turn were also paying little attention to this scene playing out in the middle of a firefight. Shade could hardly blame them for their perceived callousness, as the mission came first over the feelings of any person and they could hardly stop everything just to comfort a single man. Furthermore, to quit moving at a time like this for any reason was liable to get one killed, so it rather shocked Shade to see that this grieving trooper was not dead yet.

Shade changed direction, pushing the DC back and letting it fall into the security of his sling before he began running towards the oblivious soldier who even then saw nothing but his deceased compatriot and so gave quite the audible squawk of surprise when Shade tackled him into a pit to his direct right. Made by an artillery shell, it was just wide and deep enough to give complete cover to two people so long as they both hugged the snowy ground, something Shade did near immediately, laying on his side and maneuvering his gun so that it was now cradled in his arms.

Shade's dazed and confused compatriot who'd broken his fall on the other hand immediately sat up and attempted to climb out of the pit, heading right back to where he'd been a moment ago. Or he tried, as Shade's hand wrapped around his torso and forced him back into the snow. That next thing that poor man knew, Shade was practically yelling in his ear. "Does this look like a funeral parlor to you, soldier?! Keep your head down!"

The solider struggled against him, trying to break free of his grip, "No, he's alive! I can still save him-!"

"Are you a medic, trooper?! I'm not, but I'm also fairly certain he can't get any more dead than he is already!" Shade rolled onto his back and used his free hand to reach out of the pit from whence he's come in, groping around for something. A second later, Shade roughly slammed the clone's forgotten DC-15S into his hands, only taking his paws off once the soldier had stopped fighting him and shakily closed his fingers around his own blaster.

The trooper froze than gave a slow shake of his head, unwilling or unable to believe what he'd just been told but still trying to rationalize it. "He isn't... It's fine, he just needs..."

Shade couldn't truly hear him over the din of combat, but the body language communicated what he was trying to say nonetheless. It was honestly a surprise to him that he would encounter such an emotional display so openly on the battlefield and so soon at that, for the Kaminoans had commissioned the clones of Fett including himself to 'act now, grieve later'. It was a minor altercation in the genome to further enhance their ability as warfighters, compounded by an aspect of the flash-training all clones undertake to reinforce that particular notion just for good measure. Of course, that wasn't to say that they couldn't feel sorrow or even have a minor emotional breakdown during combat, for they could and often did, but it was never enough to interfere with their ability to interfere with their duty. The real pain was supposed to come after, once they'd left the battlefield and returned to the barracks, where they could sort through the losses in peace. Of course, there was always the possibility of it interceding during a lull in the bloodletting, but even that could be decently managed depending on the soldier and the measures taken to keep them in the moment. The problem present was that he was expressing such deep pain here in the middle of it, which was liable to get somebody killed and Shade simply couldn't have that. There were two immediate explanations that came to him, and one was that he was emotionally defective, which was slightly more common amongst active-duty clones due to it's status as being far less detectable than a physical defect. Generally however, they were also slightly more dangerous as they could lead good soldiers to make bad decisions should they become compromised in such a way, which was why the Kaminoans could at times be a little more harsh in their judgement.

The other reason for this could be that the dead clone over there was a Batcher of this one. 'Batchers' as they're called are clones born to the same tube at the same time and while all clones are 'brothers' as it were, the batchers are and were always especially close as they ate together, slept together, and trained together right from their first breaths. And, more often than not, they fought together even after training was complete as well due to the seamless cohesion which could only be created through years of working as a single unit. While the average clone troopers as a whole are infinitely superior to battle droids individually, this is also when it comes to squads or companies. With the right leadership and preparation as well as a high degree of general competence, it was entirely possible for one squad of clones from the same Batch to beat entire platoons of droids by themselves depending on the situation. The batchers take familiarity to another level, knowing each other so well that sometimes, words, expressions, and hand signals are not needed to communicate orders and requests. Of course, when a squad of batchers lose a member or more, the consequences can be rather great.

Such as now.

"I'm sorry, but the only thing he has need of at this point is either a grave or an incinerator depending on your- Hey!" The troop had begun to shrink in on himself, seemingly failing to hear much of anything after the word 'incinerator', and had so flinched at the sound of Shade raising his voice so abruptly. "Hey," Shade repeated a little more gently, "I know this is tough, but right now, you can't afford to let yourself get caught up in your feelings. Look, take a minute or two more but your other brothers in the 882nd still need you, so you have to get it together, alright?"

The trooper looked to him, staring blankly before his head cocked to the side as though he just noticed something that honestly should have been fairly obvious. "W-Wait, you're Commander Shade!"

"What? No, I'm just some other clone who wears the colors and rank of Commander of the 882nd." Shade grumbled sarcastically, "Of course I'm Shade, who else would I be? A Wampa masquerading as a Human?! I'm afraid I don't really care for burying my food in ice and nor am I in any hurry to discover what people taste like, thank you very much!""

"I- Sorry Sir!" The poor clone straightened as much as he could without risking a bolt to the back of the head, fingers curving around his DC like they must have hundred of times before, almost subconsciously preparing to follow any order his Commander gave him.

Shade released a puff of air. "Forget about it. It's fine." Tentatively, he peeked his head, casting an eye on their target then quickly ducked back down behind cover.

Sitting in the center of a large lake was Fort Dablis, the last bastion of Separatist resistance on Ando Prime. It was a dark and imposing structure cast from blackened Durasteel and would have looked from space to be in the form of a pentagon with massive walls which were currently swarming with Battle Droids of all shapes and sizes, and at the end of each were obsidian towers which seemed to stretch on forever towards the sky with layers upon layers of slits from where the barrels of anti-infantry weapons delivered their lethal ordinance. However, none of them compared to the field guns perched near to the top of each tower which were responsible for ripping the snowy plains surrounding the structure which the clones were scurrying up and down about like a hive's worth of panicking insects apart piece by piece, creating many of the holes Shade and his soldiers were hiding in even now. In no time at all, it'd turned the entire area into what looked like a frosty post-apocalyptic hellscape through which he and his men had been forced to pay for every inch in bodies. Worse still was that they were without cannons or armor of their own to fight back with, having little other choice but to leave them behind when they proved too cumbersome to fit into the ice tunnels. And so, they'd remained on the other side of the bleak, snowy mountain far off to the rear from whence Shade as well as his men had come and marked the exit to the tunnels they'd all traveled through to get here. Air superiority too was beyond them, as Shade knew that behind the wall of guns which had harried them since they got here, a row of anti-air weapons sat ready and waiting to tear any gunship sent it's way right out of the sky. Thusly, they'd been forced to opt for the good old fashion way; no armor, no air, just themselves, the weapons they carried, and the armor on their backs. The lake itself had frozen over, leaving a sheet of ice thick enough that one could safely walk on it without fear of falling through. However, nobody amongst his men had made it that far, though the closest clone-occupied foxhole was located just outside of it, so close that taking even one step forward out of the hole would have placed that particular soldier firmly on the frozen lake.

Off in the distance, straight ahead and outlining the intimidating structure from behind in a vibrant orange glow, the sun was beginning was beginning to dip below the horizon, sending a signal to all who had the presence of mind to notice that day would soon run out of light, at least for now. Regrettably, the sun was against the clone commander and his men coming from this angle, but their target was big enough to wrap most of the clones in the nearby vicinity in the shade in spite of how far off the fort still was, which should perhaps speak to the volume of it's size.

Shade had to fight not to smile.

These particular clankers didn't know it yet, but he and his brothers owned the night.

Shade turned back to the brother he was sharing this snowy orifice with, "I'm going ahead. Take a moment to collect your bearings, then join the rest of us when you're ready." Shade leaned in a little closer, "And don't do anything stupid, huh? I don't need a body count to know I've lost a fair few troops today, and I don't want to lose anymore than I must, so try to stay alive. That's an order."

"Sir, yes Sir!" The trooper saluted as well as he could without risking getting his arm shot off.

Shade leaned back, nodding to himself with satisfaction, "Just what I wanted to hear." The next thing that clone knew, Shade was gone.

Shade felt his leg buckle as it caught on a particularly hard piece of ice which was partially submerged in the snow, sending him crashing down to one knee, and not a moment too soon as a torrent of blaster fire raked over the area his head and chest had once occupied, ripping through a collection of soldiers who had been behind, beside, or just ahead of him. He grimaced as he rose back up, leveling his blaster at the column of B1s headed straight towards the mishmash of 882nd clones scrambling every which way as they tried to find cover, moved to fire back, or some amalgamation of both. The clankers had come out of the main gate and were slowly plodding along over the icy lake towards the Republic positions, unflinchingly advancing as they fell in ones and twos along the way. However, the number of destroyed was beginning to increase little by little as more and more clones recovered from the volley and began replying with their own fire. And as though to spite Shade's immediate estimation of the losses they had just taken, multiple clones who had just fallen around him were beginning to return to their feet, having only taken a graze or two, seen what was coming and dropped down, or perhaps gotten a little lucky like him and stumbled just in time to avoid death. The gate had since closed behind the war machines, blocking any chance of retreat for the B1s or entrance for the clones.

'Whoever is leading these droids must be confident in victory if they are sending them out to fight us like this,' Shade contemplated darkly, 'That, or they have numbers to spare and don't mind sacrificing a few if it means inflicting a little more damage on us. If the enemy should end up losing several very important pieces, than what are the lives of a few pawns, am I right?' Neither thought was very comforting, but Shade was far from worried.

Despite how bad it looked, Shade's gut told him the losses they were taking were nowhere near as bad as they looked, a sentiment backed up by the fact that he still had about eight more waves of troops waiting in the wings. Speaking of which...

A fresh wave of war cries rang up some ways from where Shade had come, whatever words they may have shouted lost in the din and the distance between them, but the similarity in the voices was unmistakable.

That would be Wave Three, and boy did they sound hungry for a fight.

Furthermore, everything was going in accordance with his General's plan, with even the most mild of his predictions seemingly coming true before Shade's very eyes. And while some of the other commanders might have had some misgivings about the Jedi who were leading them, Shade had none about his for as far as he could tell, the General placed in charge of the 882nd was a tactical genius. Obviously, he was far from an expert on Jedi as a whole but even he had heard about the incredible prowess of General Mundi and thus far, his former Padawan was proving to be just as capable both physically and mentally.

Shade's DC joined those of his men in picking off their adversaries who by now were less than a hundred and fifty feet away, shot after shot finding their marks as he blasted the cranium of the first droid his sights centered on which sent the head lazily spinning into the air before it joined the body on the ground, put two shots into the chest plate of the second enemy after which the body dropped with such force that it slid forward for several seconds before coming to a complete stop, and then hit a third in it's spindly midriff, causing it to double over in on itself as it collapsed in a heap of metal. He wasted no time in following up on that by making a break for one of the pits right next to frozen water, leaping in with reckless abandon while absently noting that in the time it'd taken him to get there, the B1s had been shredded down to two-thirds of their original number.

As he settled into this particular hole, he took note that the sunlight was almost gone now, with only the last streams of twilight illuminating the battlefield under naturally occurring light. With each passing second, it seemed to get a little darker and darker, the surrounding area sliding into impermeable blackness he could not have begun to even peer through without his helmet's nocturnal settings or a flashlight.

Night falls, and soon, the Separatists would fall with it.

The wind was also picking up to the degree that his helmet's audio could pick up it's whistling as it whizzed around him, kicking up a cloud of sleet which battered his troopers with fresh flakes as it rolled along with the force which had set it in motion in the first place. Simultaneously, snow has begun to fall from the sky, light and innocuous as it made a gentle entrance to the area, softly fluttering about as the flakes slowly but surely greeted the carnage ensuing around them.

But Shade wasn't fooled. Combined with this wind, there was no doubt that a snowstorm was on the horizon, he could feel it in his bones.

"Commander Shade." Shade rolled off his stomach and onto his right side, catching sight of the only other occupants of this particular piece of cover. There were two of them, one of whom was as wounded as he was unconscious which was to say very and likely one of the 'Shinnies' brought in to replace some of the number they'd lost back on Geonosis, judging by the lack of individual markings on this one's armor. That's some bad luck, to get shot on one's very first deployment, but that's just the way it goes sometimes. In war and in life. The other soldier was very much awake, looming over the unconscious clone as dexterous fingers worked at the injuries, his armor crisp and unmarked save the red medic's patch emblazoned on his right shoulder. This one was as new to combat as his armor, but had already managed to distinguish himself to Shade over the course of this single planetary campaign through the number of times Shade had been forced to hunt him down and (gleefully) kick him awake so that he could attend to his duties. This medic's name was Private CT-1434, but everybody called him 'Clicks', and he had the laziest singular demeanor Shade had ever come across, but he was incredibly good at his job in spite of appearances and hadn't let Shade down yet where the on-sight application of battlefield medicine was concerned. "Nice of you to drop in.' Clicks continued wryly as he shrugged his shoulders, eliciting a few cracks that were audible enough for Shade to hear it from his end of the ditch. That was how Clicks got his nickname, for even though he was the same biological age as every other clone in the Grand Army, Clicks had the misfortune of inheriting a minor defect which gave him the joints of an old man. Perhaps because of it, Clicks had already developed a reputation for complaining to anyone who would listen whenever they had to do extraneous physical activity, and yet he was perfectly able to keep up with the rest of his brethren whenever he truly needed to. Unsurprisingly, he was also the center of many jokes focused particularly on the elderly.

"Yeah, I was in the neighborhood just strolling along and minding my own business when some mechanical hoodlums tried to jump me and steal my wallet, so I thought I'd hide out here in your lovely winter home for a bit." In case it was not evident, Shade was given his nickname not just because he was the leader of a corps of clones who specialized in operating at night, but because he had a rather glib tongue for a commander. He thought it was one of his greatest assets, but time had proven to him that it was also one of his greatest inhibitors. "I must say, I thought I'd find you slinking around at the bottom of one of these craters, but I didn't expect you to be so close to the frontline."

"I go where the bodies take me, Sir." Clicks angled his neck to side, eliciting another sharp pop, "Ah, my neck... And they led me to here, unfortunately."

"How's he doing." Shade nodded to the clone under Clicks' care.

"Good, I think." Clicks replied, shooting his superior a glance before he resumed tending to the subject of their discussion, "He took a pretty bad hit, but fortunately for him, he just so happened to literally fall into my lap right after. Presuming he doesn't get shot again and no complications arise, he should make a full recovery. So, how's the battle going, Sir? Can we expect victory here soon? I only ask because I'm about ready to take a nap and crouching down here all this time is seriously doing a number on my back."

"All is going well, my geriatric friend." This statement was punctuated by the scream of a nearby clone, after which Clicks all but sighed as he realized his workload was about to get bigger and Shade quietly amended, "Mostly."

"Whatever you say, sir." Clicks remarked noncommittally, "You got an estimate on how long it'll take our fearless leader to execute his end of the plan?"

"He'll execute it when he executes it, that's all I can say." Shade brought his DC up over the edge of the hole and squeezed off a burst of bolts, downing yet another droid before he descended back into relative safety.

"You trust he'll come through? I don't mean to put a damper on you're enthusiasm Sir, but I've heard all kinds of stories about Generals who proved to be inadequate in going about trying to fulfill the demands of their positions." Clicks questioned.

"If I didn't, I probably wouldn't be lounging in the slush and internally wondering whether it'll be the cold or the droids that get me first, don't you think? He'll come through, just you wait." Shade insisted, checking the power cell on his blaster. Still good to go. Splendid, as he suspected he would have to fight through many more battle droids before the day was done.

"Your faith in the General is so heartwarming, I almost shed a tear there... But dragging up the level of emotion necessary to do that felt like a lot of work, so I didn't go through with it."

"Tell you what old man, you worry about keeping him alive and I'll worry about our chances of winning the battle, alright?" Shade didn't wait for him to reply, attention already completely back on the focus of their assault, gazing at it so intently that one wouldn't not be remiss to presume that he was attempting to peer through the walls, and thinking back to what his General had told him only a couple of hours before. "'Worry not Commander, I speculate that if all goes well, Fort Dablis will fall before midnight tonight.', he said." Shade reflected internally, shaking his head, 'Well General, I'm in postion, so it's all up to you now...'

R0-YU

Within the inner keep of Fort Dablis, a pair of B1 battle droids calmly patrolled it's dreary and poorly lit grey, halls making their way along a path they took nearly every day. Just as the outside was horribly unnerving, the inside was hardly any better, with the sort of unsettling aesthetic to it which reminded R0 of a haunted castle from one of those types of stories the meat bags sometimes cooked up to scare each other. But R0 didn't mind that, for he lacked the necessary intelligence to be afraid of such places, however eerie it may or may not have been.

As they walked on in this corridor that was so quiet, the only sound that could be heard were their own footsteps which seemed to reverberate off the walls, R0 paused as he heard one of the artillery guns go off, but was met with a return to silence immediately after as it was the only weapon loud enough for them to hear this deep inside the fort. The screams of those pesky clones, the sounds of the blasters, and the explosions which resounded through the area as thermal detonators and artillery shells went off at irregular intervals, they were all so close and yet too far for them to hear within the confines of these walls.

"Hey," He felt his companion, R1-TW, nudge him and then point to a fork in the passageway ahead of them which went either right or left. "Which way do we go again? I forgot."

"Again? I just told you not even fifteen minutes ago." R0 fought hard to keep the agitation from seeping into his nasally vocabulator, "We're going to the left!" He finished that statement by resolutely marching forward and turning down the right hall, quickly disappearing from R1's sight.

"Uh, R0? That's the right." R1's voice informed him from around the corner he'd just moved passed.

A moment later, R0 sauntered back into R1's sight and then out of it once more after he'd corrected his course, calling back, "I knew that!"

"Sure you did..." As he continued walking, the sound of metal feet trotting up behind R0 told him that R1 had rejoined him, "So, what do you think?"

"About what?"

"You know what," R1 took a slightly larger step forward to look his partner in the face plate, "The clones! They're finally here, having come to destroy our homes and devour our babies, guided ever onward by their uncontrollable bloodlust and thirst for synthetic flesh! They're the bringers of the end times, and they shall not stop until all of droidkind have felt their wraith!" As one may have imagined, this rather over-the-top collection of sentences was accompanied by R1 gesticulating as wildly as his stick-thin limbs, one of which was holding a blaster, would allow him to.

The patrol abruptly stopped as R0 turned and just blankly looked at R1, before slowly shaking his head as he elicited the droid equivalent of a sigh. "When we're finished here, I'm telling the Supply Officer to cut back on your oil supply."

An electrically augmented gasp filled the air as R1 recoiled in horror, "You monster!"

"Oh please, you've been mildly malfunctioning for days now and I'm pretty sure that the extra oil you've been taking in may have something to do with it, if it's seeped into your logic matrix as I suspect." R0 resumed patrolling, R1 only a step behind, "... They are done for."

"What, my logic matrix?" R1 asked with great confusion, not that confusing him greatly was very hard.

"No-well, that too, but I meant the clones." R0 replied, focused on the path ahead of him, "Last I heard, they charged our defenses head-on and they don't even have their Jedi General with them, so I'll be surprised if we haven't obliterated them in a couple of hours. Plus, this new Separatist General the higher-ups sent us has all but whipped our army into tip-top shape, so there's no way they can stand against us now."

"Yeah, he really is something, huh? Where do you think they found someone like him?" R1 was now right besides R0.

"Don't know, Don't care. All I can tell you is that I'd take him over General Grevious any day." They were now nearly to the end of their route on this level of the burg, and soon made their way to the turbo lift which would take them the next level from which they were to continue their assigned patrol pattern. "Let's make a pit-stop at the lowest level, I want to check on how our defenses in the ice tunnels are holding up."

"Roger, roger." R1 sounded off dumbly as he came to a stop alongside R0, before another question came to him. "Hey RO, where do you think the Jedi really is? None of our reports mentioned that he's left the planet and it's not like there is any other area of interest to the Republic left on this rock as far as we know, so he has to be around here somewhere, right?"

"How should I know? It's not like I live inside the Jedi's head." R0 went to hit the call button which would send the turbo lift to them, but withdrew his hand when he realized it was already coming to them. "But if you want my opinion, the Jedi is probably hiding at the back of their lines like the coward he is."

The door slid open, revealing an entire turbo-lift's worth of clone troopers dressed in the white and black armor to 882nd Dusk Corps, crammed in from one end of the space to the other, all of whom immediately began peering at the pair of droids with would could only be described as 'deeply malevolent intentions'. However, most of them were forced to do so from around either shoulder of the humanoid who'd stood in front of the doors and so was likewise closest to B1s when this situation began.

He was a Chiss male with short but slick and organized dark hair, crimson red eyes which bled all over the flesh of either eyeball and shined with great intelligence, and deep blue skin. He was quite tall to the degree that he stood even higher than the clones, with a scar running across the meat of his right temple from the side of head to the top, disappearing into the hairline at either end, and looked to be well-built but not the point that he was bulging with muscle. He was wearing a brown overtunic with a leather belt and boots of the same color as well as black trousers and a dark undertunic, and hooked to one side of the belt was what could be only be a single-bladed lightsaber. The Chiss appraised both droids quickly if dispassionately, regarding them with nothing short of great disinterest. "An amusing if tragically incorrect conclusion." He rumbled with a rich voice deeply befitting of a man with a great stature such as him.

Both B1s, like any other being would have, immediately reacted. Though of the two, R0 had the slightly more proper response. "Blueberry-I mean, intruder!" He cried as he tried to raise his blaster.

R1 on the other hand... "Oh my goodness, he's so tall and handsome!" The droid looked up at the large man eagerly, "Can I have your autograph?!"

The Chiss, choosing not to dignify that with a response or even a proper reaction of his own, moved fast, faster even than R0 despite the droid having started first. A green flash of light filled R0's optical receptors, and then both he and R1 knew no more.

Risk'iwaz'zruge

Risk'iwaz'zruge' or Riwazu as he was better known examined the freshly made mechanical corpses with impassive if analytical eyes, before nodding to himself, satisfied with his work. It had been a clean and quick horizontal slash, placed at the right level to decapitate both B1s with one fell swoop, and then they'd both fallen limply before him him, limbs and E-5 Blaster Rifles clattering the floor. As he returned the lightsaber to his belt, he faintly heard one of the clones behind him, Sergeant CT-7408, or 'Gunny', faintly say something to the effect of "Aw man, I wanted a piece of them."

"Hush," Lieutenant CT-7474, 'Noir', and Riwazu's Ranking Officer in place of Shade, shushed him lightly but firmly, 'Before you blow our cover."

Riwazu paid neither of them any mind, gazing down the hall before he brought a hand up and signaled to the clones, 'Advance.'

At once, twelve troopers poured around either side of Riwazu and into the passageway one by one, dividing into two lines and raising their weapons as they hugging either wall, checking every conceivable direction for a possible threat. Not a sound was made this entire time, the group moving in complete silence. The last to leave Riwazu before he was standing alone in the elevator was Corporal CT-3235, or 'Bam', the Demolitions Specialist who was hand-picked by Riwazu for this mission and the piece around which this plan revolved. He stood near at the very back of the line to the right side, standing where he could act at the rearguard to his brothers but also in a position that was not so far that Riwazu couldn't reach him quickly, precisely as Bam had been instructed by the General at the start of the assignment. He was distinctive amongst the armor of his brothers thanks to the large, cartoonish-looking explosion drawn over his left chest plate, the style which honestly would not have been out of place in an animated holoshow.

Having reached the end of that section of the hallway, Noir, who was at the head of the right group, quickly signaled 'Clear' to the rest of them. Upon seeing it, the troopers relaxed slightly, breaking off to find their own particular sections of cover with the exception of two troopers who Noir silently ordered to stand guard where he'd been a moment ago. Positioned next to the turbo-lift doors opposite Bam was Private CT-6626, 'Dash', who greeted Riwazu as he stepped out of the lift himself. Dash was in charge of the technical end of this operation, and stood out almost as much as Bam thanks to the dark dash marks that covered his helmet, shoulder pads, and knee guards. Tapping a few keys on his wrist com, he quickly brought up a schematic of the fortress they were currently inside before zooming in, highlighting their current position with a yellow dot and then swiping over to another section of the map and using a red dot to indicate their target; the Main Reactor. Quickly committing all relevant sections of it to memory as fast and efficiently as he could, Riwazu gave a curt nod to the tech trooper who canceled the holomap, quickly saluted, and then moved briskly back to his previous position, awaiting further orders.

A few long strides later, Riwazu had closed the distance between himself and Noir, tapped the clone Lieutenant on the shoulder pad, and quickly if silently communicated, 'I'll take point.' To which he received another salute before the clone took a step back and allowed his General to take up his position.

Standing there, Riwazu took a moment to consider how the plan had been going thus far and found no reason to be displeased for it had gone off without a hitch. After moving underground from the caves where the 882nd headquarters was located to the tunnels which lead to directly beneath Fort Dablis itself which had been something a gamble given that the path between those two points had been lost for thousands of years and could have resulted in the lot of them getting lost as well, a quick if violent and nearly noiseless skirmish with the squad of droids who had been set up at the lift entrance, and a swift ride to the level they were currently on, they were now gearing up to destroy the main source of power within this base which helped to keep the defenses of the fortress active, including their artillery guns. Without those, the Republic Navy would be free to fly in and bomb to kingdom come, to be followed shortly afterward by both ground forces and jump troops who would all but overwhelm the few droids the bombs did not destroy. Even better, they'd managed to get this far seemingly without giving any of the clankers a reason to suspect that Riwazu and his men had made it inside even with the quick thinking on the General's part a few moments earlier. It was perfect...too perfect. Something was about to wrong with this mission, he was sure, but he'd come quite far by this point and no intention of giving up now. He had prepared carefully for this task, and could not help but feel confident that he and the clones could handle whatever came their way for better or worse.

He gestured for the clones to follow him, and made the first step around the corner at the end of the hall, leading the way towards their objective. Alas, in doing so, he unwittingly fulfilled the concern that had been harrying him only a moment ago...

?

"General, we're picking up organic motion in the eastern quadrant!" A battle droid who had been sitting quietly at his station only a moment earlier informed the individual who'd recently been charged with overseeing the defense and then reclamation of Ando Prime, mechanized voice carrying across the throne room turned control room to the person currently occupying the old stony throne which took up much of the back wall.

Slowly, and with the help of a metallic staff, the figure robed in black stood to his full height, "Then it seems we are ready to proceed with next part of my strategy... Good." The figure thought to himself before replying to his droid subordinate, deep voice supplemented with an electrical twang thanks to the dark helmet ringing throughout the room. "Inform all auxiliary personnel that we have intruders within our walls, and that they are to report to their nearest command units for instructions in rooting out and destroying this invading force."

"Sir," Another droid at another monitor called to him from the other side of the room, "The lack of a Jedi General on the battlefield outside suggests that they may be leading this strike force. Presuming that is the case, what would you have us do?"

"Ah yes, the apparent absence of the Jedi is most conspicuous, isn't it?" The figure regarded the droid for a moment before issuing a new set of orders even as he advanced further from his former seat and closer the set of workstations were a gaggle of B1s were sitting. "Summon my personal guard. If the Jedi is amongst them, I will deal with him myself."

"Oh yeah?" The synthetic worker closest to the figure, who also seemed to have the least well-developed sense of self-preservation wondered aloud, tone conveying smug condescension, "And how are you going to do that, General?"

Within a moment, the figure turned to the droid while simultaneously twisting off a section of his staff so that he was now holding what looked like a rather long handle in one hand and thumbed a previously unseen activation switch. As a bloody red energy blade sprang forth from one end of the long handle, the figure swung down diagonally through the torso of the mouthy droid, sending it's body crashing to the ground in two separate pieces.

As he deactivated the weapon and began screwing back onto the staff, he looked about the room of dead silent droids. "So... any more questions?"

Hey all, I'm back after being away forever. Sorry it took so long, but between the Coronavirus, the demands of my work in real life, and the contributions I've been making to the stories of other people, I was unable to update until just now. I am likewise sorry that it isn't much longer than this, but I figured I'd kept you all waiting for long enough.

In other news, several people have wrote to me expressing their interest in contributing to this new story of mine, and it is my profound pleasure to tell you all that the wait is nearly over, for I have decided that I'm going to open up OC submission here pretty soon. The profile will be available in the very first chapter of that story, which I plan to upload here in the next couple days or so. HOWEVER, I should make it clear that even after I have all the characters I need and close the submissions, I do not intend to start that story properly until I've introduced all the main characters in this one, which I've not done yet. Also, the rules for that one will be somewhat different from this one and as I think I've mentioned before, the angle I'm trying to play with for it will rather different. You will see what I mean once you look at the ground rules.

Okay, I think that's it, so please review this chapter if you are so inclined and follow or favorite if you haven't already. As always, no flames please.

Until next time!

Edit: Okay everybody, the new SYOC is up, so please check it out if you are so inclined!