Burner don't Cry

"Alright, get ready to go into hyperspace!" Volt called, his hand resting on the hyperdrive thrusters. When everyone was ready, he engaged the hyperdrive, sending them on their way to the desert planet of Tatooine.

Burner looked out the veiwport after they entered hyperspace. The passing stars were just streaks of orange, white, blue and red. It made him feel at peace. He loved hyperspace, he often told his brothers, and the younge cadets that hyperspace was a truely marvelous place. Nothing could ever change his mind about space.

"Hey wake up Gingy! This isn't a pleasure cruise ya know." Mecha teased.

"The name's Burner, not Gingy!" Burner barked.

"Ooo I'm so scared of a long haired ginger." the other laughed.

"Take it easy on him, Mecha. He's younger than the rest of us." Pulse interrupted.

Burner smiled at Pulse. Pulse was aways looking out for him since he joined captain Vara's 'Phantoms'. Out of the clones that made up the squad, Pulse was the most experiance, and the eldest. Pulse was assigned to the Phantom Squad after being transferred from team to team, since his origonal squad was annilated leave him alone. How he got his name; Burner guessed it was his skill as a medic, but he didn't know. All he knew that the medic was less inclined to fight.

"Burner, why don't you check on the supplies?" Pulse suggested looking up from the nava-computer.

"Aye Sir." Burner replied heading for the cargo hold, happy to get away from Mecha, but he also hated the cargo hold. It was too dark for his liking.

Vara sat back from the controls and grinned "So far smooth sailing, huh Volt?"

"Would seem so, Sir. Maybe this mission isn't as bad as we thought."

She looked over her shoulder "Where's Burner?" she asked.

"In the cargo hold, Sir." Pulse replied.

"Ah, thanks Pulse." Vara said relaxing a bit. She closed her eyes and let her mind go blank as she reached out with her feelings to grasp the Force like she normally did when she was meditating.

She saw at first, nothing. The she realized that what she was seeing was the harsh glare of coarse sand. As the vision cleared, she saw dunes and blowing sand. Tatooine. The sun was behind her then she heard blaster fire. The battle was all around her, the next thing she felt was a searing pain errupting from her calf. Someone yelled "Cover the Captain!" then nothing. Vara's teal eyes snapped open to find that all the clones in the cockpit where watching her with worried looks.

"How long have you boys been watching me?"

"About ten minutes. You feeling alright Sir?" Charge asked "Your face went completly white all of a sudden. Thought you died cause you took on a grey shade."

"I'm quite alright...just a bad dream" vara said forcing a grin "Nothing to worry about." she told them, waving the thought away. In actuall fact, Vara was not fine, the vision was huanting her. Something bad would happen on Tatooine.

Burner crept along the allies of the cargo hold, completely terrified. He wished he was at a turret post rather than here. Anything other than cargo checking. With shaking hands, he turned on his helmet lamp to bring some light into the cargo hold. Looking around, he took a deep breath and continued on through the bowels of the ship.

"Ok Burner, there's nothing to freak out over." He told himself "Nothing to be afraid of..." he said creeping along the narrow pathways between crates. He heard something move and turned his head to find an astromech skoot by. Frowning he kept going. "Astro droids. Why is it always and astrodroid?" he coplained reaching the center of the hold.

Burner looked back towards the door but could not see where he had entered. The door had closed. He began to get anxious. He claimed he wasn't scared of anything, but in fact Burner was afraid of the darkness. He often had nightmares of being engulphed by the darkness. Emptiness, a void. But he woud never admitt it to anyone. Especially not Mecha, he'd never tell that shorty about his fear. He was different. No matter how much drilling he'd gone through, he still felt fear, something no clone felt. So he kept it a secret. But for how much longer.

He froze when something dropped. A small clang as metal hit the floor behind him. He slowly turned his head but saw, nothing at firts, then he noticed the lid of a crate on the floor. Tentitively he crept closer to it. The crate was unmarked and it was empty. It was like the crate's contents got up and left. Feeling very uneasy, Burner backed up slowly. He stopped when something hit his boot and he lost what little composure he had left and screamed. As he spun around to meet his fate, blaster ready to fire. But nothing was in his line of vision. Puzzled he looked at his boot and saw the culprit. A malfunctioning mousedroid.

Ashamed of his his reaction, he sat up against on of the crates and rested his head against his knees."I'm an idiot." he muttered "Scared by a little mouse droid. Some Republic soldier I turned out to be..." he moaned as tear fell from his eyes.

~Meanwhle in the cockpit~

"Burner's not back yet?" Vara asked.

"No Sir, he hasn't comeback from checking the cargo hold." Gunner replied.

"It doesn't take that long to check the hold." Mecha pointed out.

Vara nodded and looked at Volt. "Take over untill I come back." she instructed getting out of the cockpoit.

"Yes Sir."

Vara walked quickly towards the cargo hold, wondering what was taking him so long to come back. "Burner's never late." she though opening the door to the cargo hold.

"Burner?" her voice called out. When she got no reply, she decided to investigate further into the hold. "Burner!" she called, still no answer.

Vara frowned and walked past the trick crate she'd packed and found Burner curled up beside it. "There you are Burner. We wer- hey what's wrong?" she asked sitting beside the clone. When he looked up she saw the tears running down his face. "What happened to him?" she wondered, griping his shoulder gently "It's OK Burner, you can me me."