Captain Arc of the 303rd clone battalion of the Grand Army of the Republic

Chapter 8: Earning the paint

After introduction's had been made and the men had transferred over to the venator, Captain Keeli and General Gun-Di requested to talk to Jaune on the bridge.

As Jaune approached the bridge in brand new, unpainted ARC trooper armour, and his helmet held underneath the crook of his left arm. He was suddenly attacked by a sudden wave of nerves as he approached the blast doors, he forced the nerves down with a trick Fordo showed him.

With his nerves calmed and the blast doors open, Jaune marched onto the bridge before standing in front of the holo-table. "You wanted to see me, general?"

"Ah. Jaune, yes I did, we are going to be deployed soon, I've just been informed that the separatist's have a small listening post on a small moon in the Ryloth system, we. Have been tasked with destroying it."

"What's the plan sir? I doubt that the clankers are going to be there in force."

With that shared thought, a map was brought up on the holo, with a separatist listening base outlined in red.

"Well first, we'll jam their communication frequencies as soon as we enter the system, then-"

*30 minute time skip*

With the plan's finalised and the gunship's readied for deployment, everyone was excited about the mission. Sure, it wasn't glamorous, like the 501st, or even the 212th, but it was still their mission, and they would see it through to the end.

As the gunship's approached the separatist base the clones went through their final weapon checks. As the last blaster was checked the gunship shook as it was pelted by separatist ground fire. "Good thing the clankers are terrible shots!" Jaune said with amusement dripping off every word. This had the desired effect as the roar of the gunship's engines was drowned out by the clones laughter.

Eventually though, the laughter died, the light went from red to green, the doors opened and the battle began.

As Jaune jumped off the gunship he ran into cover before shooting any droid the could see, with the rest of the battalion securing the landing site. Captain Keeli and general Di told Jaune to follow them, whilst the battalion kept them distracted. As they sneaked towards the separatist base, the moved through the rocks and around the larger craters. After 40 minutes of sneaking around and avoiding droid patrols, the three had arrived at the separatist base.

As Jaune and Keeli kept watch for anymore droids, general Di cut through the wall of the base. With the hole cut and no more droids around, the three entered and immediately went towards the reactor. They moved slowly and quietly, using the shadows to their advantage, despite this caution though, they were nearly found a few times. Which led to the death of more than a couple of droids.

After five minutes worth of sneaking and nearly a dozen destroyed droids, the three entered the reactor room and placed explosives on the core, hiding them as they did. With the explosive's placed, they quickly ran towards the command building, blasting every droid they saw, the notion of stealth completely lost.

As they entered and cleared the command building, captain Keeli ordered the lads to attack the base with everything they had. Not even a minute later, blaster fire could be heard as the rest of the battalion attacked the base. Whilst the battalion hit the base, Jaune, Keeli and Ima-Gun-Di took copies of separatist transmissions whilst deleting all republic transmissions that the base received.

With the intel in hand, the three made their way to the hole they made and detonated the explosives on the reactor. As the base went up in a fireball the entire battalion returned to the fleet and commenced orbital bombardment on the remains of the base, removing it from existence.

After the fleet returned to a republic space station, the 'shines' were given paint, they had earned their colours. The next few hours were quiet, the only noise leaving the hangar bay was the sound of paint being added to armour. Whilst most of the lads would add the standard 303rd paint scheme to their armour. Jaune and his squad would have their own style.

Slam, after bagging 20 kills, had added 20 tally marks and a clenched fist on where his heart was, on top of the standard 303rd scheme.

Joker had added a joker card on his chest plate and a present box on the right side of his helmet.

Deadeye had added his kill count over his heart in numerals. A pair of X's graced his chest.

Crash had decided to use his namesake and painted vehicle crashes all over his armour.

Jaune's armour immediately stood out though, despite having the standard 303rd scheme, he had borrowed some yellow paint from the flyboys aboard and added the arc sigil onto his command pad (A.N I can't remember what it's called for the death of me) and even painted the beacon logo onto his shoulder piece. A pair of axes surrounded by a reef protecting his left shoulder, and over his heart he had painted the number given to him by the kaminoan's. "1-18-3"

"I hope you lads are done painting, because we've got a new mission." General Di said after entering the makeshift art studio. "And I also have a announcement. Trooper Jaune Arc! As right now. Command has given all ARC troopers in the 303rd the rank of lieutenant. Congratulations lieutenant."

"Thank you sir, I won't let you down... if you don't mind me asking sir... where are we going?"

"We're going to Ryloth boy's, we're going to Ryloth"