Evening of the next day, We stand in a loose row, twelve faces deep.
Unit commanders, Scar, Dench, Drill, my own second, plus the full command staff, tacticians, signals, quartermasters, the works.
“Alright,” I have to say, it’s genuinely unpleasant watching Fett tear into a strip of roasted meat while your own stomach’s empty, “let’s say Dench got a little overexcited and packed the mines in too tight.
Isa’s going to have a talk with him about that later personally.” Dench visibly shrinks at that.
Meanwhile, Fett takes another bite, chews slowly, and, raising his voice, continues, “But what I’m actually curious about right now is something else entirely.
Where exactly did you all get salt?” We caught on fast, but it was Salty who’d brought me the salt in question, that’s what I call Alpha-01 now.
Doesn’t seem to mind, and everyone else is starting to pick it up too.
Given that I’ve currently got my helmet transmitter live and he can hear all this in real time, means, right, there it is.
“Sir!” I step in to report.
“The salt, along with some spices, came included with the rontos, courtesy of their original owners, sir.” Which, incidentally, is exactly why the improvised girth on one of the rontos snapped crossing the swamp.
The salt container had rubbed the ration strap raw at a sharp angle, and, well.
“Your personal exploits, CT-134, we’ll be discussing separately,” chwak, chwak, “later,” Fett adds between bites.
“Might even invite you along personally for that conversation.
Fine.
Squads, sentries posted?” A ragged chorus of “yes, sir” rises from the ranks.
“Good.
Everyone off duty, rest up.
Don’t overeat, though.
Mornings coming rough.” He waves everyone off with a commanding gesture.
A little later.
The instructors’ tent.
“Oya, vod’ika!” One Mandalorian chews on a blade of grass, or maybe he’s just working a stuck piece of meat loose from his teeth, speaking toward the long range transmitter.
“Su cuy’gar, Jango.” “Kal, we’ve hit a small snag out here.
Tactics related, again.
Haven’t decided exactly where to slot it yet, so pull your Zeros together and get them out here fast, let them warm up on it.” “Whatever you say, brother.
Care to fill me in on what happened?” “We didn’t manage to spook them.
They got us instead.
And, bring that Corellian stuff of yours.” “That…
which one exactly?” Skirata asked, confused.
“The good stuff.
To loosen the nerves a little.
Daal especially’s going to need it.” “Understood,” Kal blinked, eyes widening slightly, then went quiet.
Ding-dong.
Somewhere through sleep I catch an intercom chime buzzing in my helmet’s ear.
Whatever it is, stubborn thing, refuses to take silence for an answer.
Ding-dong.
Who’s being this polite about it?
In actual emergencies, audio comms just cut in directly, no consent required.
Ding-dong.
Fine, I’m awake now, and somebody’s about to regret this.
What, sleeping in a helmet’s bad manners?
Back in my old life, working the launch station for an old air defense system, I pulled off dozens of naps in far worse gear than this, so spare me the etiquette lecture.
And the mosquitoes, again.
FRAAAAAAAH!
I specifically asked Drill to set up that exact tone for the combat alert signal.
Every time.
Our old wake up siren back in the barracks had this unfortunate habit of yanking anyone who’d ever heard it once straight into a panic response, permanently.
Fine, if it’s something urgent…
Oh.
I switch off the external vocoder.
“Yeah, Salty, what’s up?” “Sorry, Cap, we’re on the move.
Full squad.
Range one and a half, bearing due north, flat terrain.” “Copy.
Close the distance…” Ding-dong.
“Hold on.
Yes?” “Keevaaah,” Drill yawns into the mic, “got an intercept on our old base frequency out of Kamino.
They’re chewing on something over there, want in?” “Drill?
Alright, get Scar…” “Should I grab Denny?” “No, Dench needs the rest, let him sleep.
Alright, Salty, send the rontos out toward the outpost.
Grazing, basically.
Use them as cover, get as close to our owls as you can.
Need eyes on their numbers and position.” “Copy, on it,” Salty signs off.
Dark out, good.
I get up and quietly make my way toward the medics’ tents.
Why the medics, when the signals team should be handling this?
Because Drill’s just Drill.
He’s got his own gear, tinkers with it constantly, genuinely loves amateur radio work.
Damn, I’d kill for a thermal drone feed piped straight into my visor right now.
Even confirmed in the training room earlier, our white armor lights up like a beacon on IR.
But we work with what we’ve got.
Just the built-in helmet sensors, and those cap out around a hundred meters with pretty poor resolution.
Funny enough, my own janky camo paint job is actually barely visible under it, blurs together nicely.
As long as I stay still.
Heh.
Still, what would the Zeros actually want out here?
I never doubted for a second it was them.
From what I understand, our instructors had some kind of planned exercise lined up for this leg of the trip, and we threw the whole thing off schedule with our bantha caravan, meaning Skirata and his Nulls were probably supposed to provide the entertainment portion.
Which means they landed somewhere nearby and made their way here on foot or by transport.
Worth confirming.
I slip into the tent where Drill’s set up, trying to stay quiet.
He’s already cross legged on the ground, a homemade rig with an antenna balanced on his lap, wires trailing from a jury rigged tactical deck.
He waves me over, welcoming.
I sit beside him, he hands me a connector cable.
Quirk of the rig, it doesn’t pick up our helmet’s short range network at all.
I patch Salty into the line too, let him listen in from the background.
“Sorry, Cap.
Signal’s drifting, caught a partial intercept, something about our camp, but the recording…” He plays it back.
Let’s listen.
“Fhrshshshshsh…
three hours…
hrshrshhhh…
headquarters…
KPSPSPSSSH…
us and me…
khhhrk…
lighten the load…
heh heh…
FHRSSS…” “That’s definitely them,” I said.
“Strange, I thought those guys didn’t feel much of anything,” Drill mutters.
Right then the tent flap moves and Scar slides in beside us.
“What’ve you got?” “Scar, listen up,” I say.
“Working theory, the Nulls are planning to hit us, with our instructors’ blessing.
I’ll explain the rest later.
Send a couple of your people out right now,” I unfold the map on my tablet, “in this direction, with the rontos, get them moving away from camp, since those things smell terrible when—” “We’ve got filters built into the helmets though!” “Right, so let the Zeros assume our filters can’t handle ronto stink specifically, like it’s some kind of chemical agent, or that we don’t even have filters at all.
You’ve got your suit sealed?” “Yeah,” Scar nods.
“My people are heading toward the rontos.
Once they’re clear, kick up some noise on that side of camp.
A couple stun rounds, a few live shots for effect.
Blame it on the Gnulls, say a couple young ones wandered close and got spooked off.
Cut one of the rontos loose on the other side too, might help sell it.
Keep the mess believable, nothing overblown.
Then quietly move everyone out of camp toward our old position back in the gorge, you remember where the hidden post was set up with the lights, that area.
Make sure the rontos are grazing somewhere between here and our fallback route.
Minimal gear, but keep it on you.
Grab the meat too, that matters.
Tents need to be empty.
When’s your night watch rotation?” “An hour out.” “Perfect.
Set the incoming watch up with bedding instead.
Let them do whatever they want until morning, best case, actual sleep, not for show, genuinely rest.
They’re staying behind.
But pull the active patrols.
If things go loud, keep fire light and scattered, meant to unsettle, not to kill.
No reason our own people should get hurt over this.
I’ll handle Nest and the rest of command myself.
If they clear out too, great.
If not, that’s on them.
Salty, catch all that?
Nose bleeds, light up their camp for me.” “Copy,” Salty confirms, already moving.
“Alright, let’s get to work.” While everyone was issuing orders and squabbling with their people over what to bring and what to leave, I sat with my own thoughts.
And what I kept coming back to was that I was drawing way too much attention to myself all at once, but after today’s conversation with Jango…
Actually, I’d rather not dwell on that one.
Clearly he came in hot, and hard, but then again, when has anything about our situation ever not been a mess.
Reborn once already, against every odd, would luck really run out now, right when it matters?
Nobody even came out to investigate the earlier noise from the shots and pops.
Master Vau just climbed up onto the ridge, barked something short, got a reply, and went back to sleep.
An hour later, watch changed as scheduled.
Give it a couple more years and they’ll actually start stacking up patrols properly.
Salty, as expected, went with the scouts trailing our uninvited nighttime guests.
Our people did solid work pinning down the direction and timing when one of the Zeros split off from the main group.
Worth noting, our helmets, quality aside, have one real weakness.
Thick rock doesn’t let the signal through without repeaters or amplifiers in play.
So relaying anything time sensitive means physically getting back into transmitter range.
Which meant this particular guy had to run to report in.
Which meant things were about to start moving.
Simple logic says they’re either planning a capture or a theft.
Since the chatter mentioned headquarters and food specifically, we’d left them a little surprise waiting there.
A small team goes in quiet for the capture attempt.
The rest serve as the distraction.
And a convincing one, at that.
Command tents sit right at the edge of the hill, closest to the river.
The most likely approach is upriver, current working in their favor that direction.
I did warn Nest properly, gave him the actual intel, even played him the recording.
He just looked at me strangely, pulled his helmet off, and said, “No need to warn anyone else about this.
Somebody’s got to make it look convincing on the ground.” Doesn’t he realize we’re all carrying live weapons now, meaning any real confusion in the chaos could get someone seriously hurt?
Fine, his call.
Maybe he’s just feeling reckless tonight.
He did promise to give me a heads up, so, good enough.
There.
Salty flags their camp’s position.
Nice.
Real nice.
Kal and the whole Null squad, dug into a proper bunker set into a ravine.
If you didn’t know exactly what to look for, you’d walk right past it.
Hopefully they don’t have scanners running.
No visible patrol either.
They hid this well.
Alright.
Time for us to make an entrance.
“Scar, mark these coordinates, move.” The tent camp, a cluster of odd semicircular tunnel-shaped shelters, sat quiet.
Sentries either asleep or close to it.
Total silence.
Then, from the far side, near the river, a flare shot skyward with a sharp whistle.
The quiet broke with a shouted “Combat—” cut off mid word, and a lazy burst of carbine fire swept through the shadows near the water.
A handful of clone commanders scrambled around the tents, confused about what was happening and where everyone had gone, while the assault troopers pulled off their posts did a convincing job faking panic.
The lone watcher in white lowered his visor and smiled, invisible under the helmet regardless.
He gave a brief “move out,” turned, and vanished into the wet undergrowth, damp with the smell of the forest.
Somewhere else, another watcher in red lowered his own visor and mirrored that exact same smile from atop a distant hill, despite the fact that neither of them could possibly have seen the other from where they stood.
Morning.
Temporary camp, N-series clones.
“Master Kal, honestly, if you wanted some, all you had to do was ask.
We’re not stingy.” Chewing on a piece of Skirata’s meat, he looked unusually thoughtful, scanning the tightly encircled camp holding his own trainees.
The Nulls, in turn, glared daggers at anyone within eyeshot, using every ounce of hostility they could muster.
“I won’t even ask how you found us.
But I’ve got one more question.
Where exactly did you get the salt?”
com/Hezzario