The Echelons - 228th Black Skulls- A Star Wars Story

Operation: Dynamite

Operation Dynamite was a task that only Echelon's could have completed, so the Nightmares armed up. Flanker and Strider were going to be attacking swiftly, as the main force exited hyperspace over the planet of Vandor, the 228th Black Skulls Venator known as the Moccus exited far behind the main fleet, Flanker and Strider entering the armory while the deck crew fueled and armed their gunship to the planets surface. They quickly entered the armory and put their helmets on, the red on their visors lighting up when the helmets sealed. They grabbed their ammo cartridges and loaded up all their equipment into their backpacks and grabbed their DC-18 TPM's as their secondaries and their DC-15t's as their primaries. Flanker and Strider turned to each other and nodded, they began leaving the armory while loading their weapons, hustling to the hanger to load onto their gunship. When Flanker and Strider arrived at the hanger they went exactly to where their gunship was, they loaded up into the gunship and grabbed a handle above their head. The pilot confirmed take-off and began moving out of the hanger and over to the moon pool. The hanger team opened the doors below them and the gunship quick descended downwards and flew well below the main fleet and CIS blockade evading their scanners with the gunships specially equipped signal jammer, as they made their way to the planet the Moccus fell in with the main fleet and prepared for the space battle before the ground assault. The gunship flew in fast and low and landed quickly three klicks out from their target, the gunship dropped two collapsed AT-RT's and Flanker and Strider jumped out. They walked over to the AT-RT's and climbed on while the gunship landed a few meters away to prepare for extraction. Flanker and Strider flipped a few switches and their walkers stood up, Flanker looked at Strider and the familiar eery noise emitted from Flanker, he said: "keep the scanner on and have them set to 125 meters, we will have to move quickly to get to their dug in outposts, we shouldn't expect any hostiles until we get there but stay alert." Strider acknowledged what he said and nodded, they throttled up and began riding towards the objective. They made it to half a klick out from the objective and parked their AT-RT's in some shrubs and lowered them back down into their smaller more compact mode. They climbed off of them and grabbed their DC-15t's and began making their way towards the massive jagged 90-degree rock wall. As they closed the distance to the enemies position they started to spot a few patrols, Flanker raised his hand up and they moved from a steady jog to a slower combat pace, they attached their DC-15t's to their weapon mounts on their back and pulled out their silenced DC-18TPM's and began to move closer, a droid patrol moved in their direction, they were gonna be overrun soon. Flanker and Strider quickly moved to the tree to their left and right and raised their secondary blasters, the B1 droids were passing right beside them and Flanker and Strider quickly stood up and cut down the first two droids with their blades then opened fire on the remaining four, they took two shots each and the droids fell to the ground. The two continued to move dodging what patrols they could, quickly scrapping the ones they couldn't. They arrived at the base of the wall and pulled their DC-15t's back out and used the detachable thermal scopes to look up at the first platform. There were four B1 Battledroids and one B2 Battledroid standing around the edge, Flanker and Strider couldn't afford to shoot their grapples up to the platform and risk the droids noticing them and shooting down at them while they were exposed on the side of the wall, they attached the grapple to their built-in rappel kit and pulled out their small drones, they attached the grapple to the controllable arm on the drone and flew them up and carefully attached them into the side on an upward-facing boulder attached to the wall. After quickly double-checking their gear they began to ascend up to the platform. Strider thought to himself, "if my rappel gear was to give out right now.... well that's not a pleasant thought." Flanker glanced at Strider noticing him looking down assuming what he was thinking and chuckled, Strider heard him and playfully punched his shoulder and they continued upward. Flanker looked at his wrist datapad and took a quick look at an image of his beloved Fleet Admiral Lynx, and thought to himself, "see you soon." The two reached the platform and prepared to take out the droids, quickly grabbing the ledge with one hand and pulling themselves up firing at the droids as they climb over rappel rope being pulled in by the altitude pulley. The DC-15t making a crisp zip sound every shot, two of the B1's fell soon after the shot the B2 turns and starts firing. Flanker pulls put his DC-18 TPM and fires at the other two B1 Droids and fires at the B2 with his DC-15t, Strider also firing upon the B2. Flanker took out the other two B1's then focused all his fire on the B2 and together his and Striders shots ate up the metal plating on the B2 reducing it to scrap in mere seconds. Without hesitation Flanker and Strider rushed inside and got to cover as soon as they saw six B1 Droids walking towards them firing at them, two commando droids following up behind quickly firing upon them. Flanker peeked from cover and fired in the direction of the droids hitting one of the B1's in the leg but the droid's fire was too suppressive to get as accurate shots in. Strider tossed a droid popper and took out 2 of the B1 droids and shot in their direction and took one more out. The commando droids closed the distance fast and jumped over Flanker and Strider's cover, as they jumped over both Flanker and Strider grabbed them in their center columns at waist height and slung them to the ground pulling their vibroblades out as they yanked them, as soon as the droids hit the ground they stabbed them through the head and stood up quickly and fired on the last remaining droids and took them out, Strider saying "that's how it's done" with a sign of victorious chant in his voice. Flanker moved to the hangers support beams and placed remotely detonated charges on them and moved further into the base, they came to a two-way junction and Flanker pointed to the left and said "move down the left side and places the charges on any support beams and if you come across in data centers be sure to extract what you can from them." Strider nodded and said "will do" while throwing up a friendly hand gesture then said "good luck brother!" Flanker throwing a thumbs-up back at him and said "to you as well" and the two began to move quickly down their respective corridors. Meanwhile, the main fleet had engaged in space combat and was right on schedule, a few LAAT Gunships have broken through the blockade and landed down below while the main forces started their engagement a few klicks away from the wall in attempts to thin out the droids that are currently there to speed up the process once the wall comes crashing down. Back inside the base, Strider was making good time getting through the base setting charges, clearing rooms, and finding some smaller data centers. As he came round the corner he was met with two B2 Super Battledroids they were so close to the turn he almost ran into them, but he quickly stepped back and dodged one of the B2's melee attacks and quickly pulled out his vibroblade and sliced one across the chest, to Strider's surprise these B2's seemed to have reinforced plating. The droids raised their blasters ad began to fire, Strider quickly jumped and rolled past the corner and raised his DC-15t to his hip and when they walked around the corner he threw his blade into ones head then shot his blade and it pushed it through the droids head flinging it into the wall behind, then raised his blaster and fired a clean hole through the second droids head. The droids fell and Strider chuckled and pulled his knife out of the wall, saying under his breath in a sarcastic voice, "just like the simulations." In the opposite direction, Flanker was moving steadily through the corridors, he came to the corner, back to the wall he peeked around the corner, standing there were two commando droids 7ft. away. Flanker pulled out his vibroblade and rounded the corner and threw the blade into one of the droids heads, the other droid landed a punch on Flanker hitting him in the side of the helmet at jaw height, Flanker's Echelon Armor absorbed the punch and Flanker barely flinched he turned to his right and attempted to slice the droid, the droid dodged it and countered with a punch of his own while also pulling out its vibroblade and quickly slicing after its punch. Flanker dodged it and tossed the knife into his left hand then throwing a punch with his right hand hitting the droid in the body component knocking it back. He ran and jumped in the air and kicked the droid in its mid-section. The droid landed and punched Flanker in the gut then across the helmet. Flanker once again absorbing the blows and quickly moved closer to the droid speaking angrily at the droid through his encoded voice modulator, the droid quickly returning with encoded language. Flanker grabbed the commando droid by the neck and stabbed it through the chest, twisting it inside, then quickly pulling it out, the serrated side grabbing onto wiring on the inside and ripping them out. The droid spoke out in a glitched tone then slumped over, Flanker let go of the droid and tossed him aside, placing a charge on the nearby support beam then continuing forward. Flanker met up with Strider in the main reactor room, it wasn't the largest reactor just enough to keep the base running. They planted the charges and told the pilot to make his way for quick extraction. They began running out of the base sprinting past droids left and right, the droids opened fire but the short hallways allowed for a quick escape. When they entered the hanger bay they set the charges off with the ones closest to them having been set to explode last in the sequence. The explosions started and they jumped off the ledge, right as they jumped off their gunship flew downward past them with its ramp open then slowed down right in front of them. At their current pace with the gunship, they would only be three free-fall speeds above the gunship's speed. Within seconds they dove through the hanger and grabbed the handles at the top and held on tight. The pilot pulled up the gunship and closed its ramp and headed back towards the Moccus. Meanwhile, the blockade had been broken and the wall had collapsed and the main force pushed through. Psycho and the ground team were headed down to the surface to assist the main force and take on some of the more key points of the battle. When Flanker and Strider arrived back on the Moccus they went up to the command center where General Ghost, his Padawan Thermal, and Fleet Admiral Lynx were located. They walked and removed their helmets, Strider let out a breath of air and said "ahhh the cool temperatures of space is refreshing" Flanker removes his helmet, skin blacked out and misty, eyes blazing red, he puts his helmet under his arm and stands with his other arm at his side, he looks to his good friend Ghost and nods, he then looks to Lynx and smiles to which she smiles back. Flanker speaks up and says "base has been reduced to mere rubble." Strider takes a step forward holding out some intel, "this should be able to give you some insight on other installations around the planet" Lynx grabbed it and said, "thank you, this will help the efforts" she turned around and placed it into a console and uploaded it to all allied ships.Strider remained in the command center and messed with his datapads. Flanker nodded to Lynx the two left the command center together and went to speak alone.