3 Cleaning Up Their Mess

Hyperspace

En route to Geonosis

The transport shuttle was slowly moving through hyperspace on the way to its destination. Inside, Patriot and the rest of the Bad Batch was being briefed on their next mission.

"This is our target." said Tech, pulling up a hologram of a Geonisian spire cluster on the main computer. "Recently, Republic scout ships have detected unusual power readings coming from this structure, which can only lead us to assume that the bugs have something going on inside. Our mission is to sneak inside, find out what it is they're working on, and shut it down if we can. That means no smashing, Wrecker."

Wrecker groaned: "Oh, come on! Not even a little?"

"No."

Patriot spoke up: "With all due respect. I've done some reading on these bugs, and they have some pretty ridiculous security. How do we plan on getting inside?"

Hunter points to a natural platform on the north corner: "This is where we will enter. It's a less active spot and isolated enough where they probably won't bother sending patrols. We'll land there, then make our entrance though the cave there." He then turns to Patriot: "We need you to stay with the ship. The map of the catacombs is on the ship's computer. Unfortunately, we got called in so fast that Tech wasn't able to upload it to his helmet fully so you will provide our directions to the source of the energy."

"Plus, it would not hurt to have someone guard the ship in case a patrol does come." Tech chimed in.

Patriot nodded: "Seems easy enough."

Just then, Crosshair yells from the cockpit: "We're here, guys!" as the shuttle exits hyperspace and begins its descent into to the orange, dusty planet of Geonosis.

"Alright, boys! You all remember your part?"

Tech, Patriot, and Wrecker all nod. Then loading his gun, Hunter says: "Time to go to work."

…

Thirty minutes later, Patriot was at the computer on the shuttle. So far everything had gone as planned: they had landed with no resistance and no droid patrols had come around since the team went in. So far, so good. The team was almost to the source, though so far, they had suspiciously seen no signs of any activity, droid or bug.

"Alright, now take a right at this corner and there should be door at the end of a hallway. Go through that and it should be a one-way hallway to the target." Patriot says over his commlink.

"Roger that. Keep us posted, Tech out," crackled Tech's voice from the other end.

"Understood."

Just then Patriot hears a scuffling noise coming from the cave: "Wait, hold on, something's coming!" He turns off his commlink and the computer, then hides behind the console. Just in time too as a small group of battle droids exits the cave and sees the ship. Patriot could hear them talking among each other:

"You sure that's a Republic ship? It sure doesn't look like one."

"I don't know. I was just told one was here and we had to find it."

"Well, I guess we start looking then."

"Let's start with this one. The door IS open."

Patriot then heard the clanking of the droids' feet as they walked onto the shuttle. Judging by the sound, there were about 4 or 5 of them. Patriot slowly unholstered his rifle. The droids continued to talk among each other:

"I don't see anything here. Certainly, no clones."

"Me neither, let's have the new probe take a look."

Probe? thought Patriot as the battle droids exited the ship, The Separatists don't have probes. He was proven wrong almost instantly as a hovering noise was heard and a small, odd looking droid floated into the ship. It had a cylinder for a body, no doubt housing the repulorlift engines that kept it off the ground. The weirdest thing about it was the mass of mechanical tentacles that sprouted from the bottom. Each one had a small red eye at the end. Patriot realized that with that many eyes, it would find him for sure; he had to destroy it before it did. Waiting until it had passed the console he was hiding behind, then immediately opened fire, damaging the cylinder body. Before the probe could react, Patriot charged the droid, tackling it to ground and drove his vibro-knife into the hole his rifle had made destroying the wiring and shutting the droid down.

"What was that?" Patriot heard one of the battle droids outside say. Ah, crap, he thought. Then again, this is part of why the team had had him stay with the ship, right? As the droids approached again, Patriot, lifting his rifle, said, "Ah, screw this!" and ran out gun blazing, taking out the two droids in the front. The other three screamed:

"Ah, there is a clone!"

"Where did HE come from?"

"Who cares?! Blast him!"

They only got a few shots off before they too were dispatched by Patriot. Who immediately afterwards turned on his comlink: "Tech, this Patriot, a squad of droids just came around, but I dealt with them. You guys ok?"

Static could only be heard on the other end. Patriot tried hailing them again, but there was still static.

"Ah, Dammit!" Patriot yelled to himself. He turned to face the cave. His team was in trouble and he had to help, and at this point, he didn't really care that Hunter told him to stay with the ship; they were his team and he had to save them.

"Well, here goes nothing." He said, raising his gun and running into the cave.

…

It wasn't too difficult once he activated his helmet's night vision. He had practically memorized the way through the tunnels while giving directions. Soon, he came to the door to the last tunnel that lead to the energy source. The door was open, but as Patriot walked through, he noticed scorch marks on the walls. The Bad Batch had certainly put up a fight, but where were they? Patriot then heard voices coming from the next room and ran up to the next door, hiding just outside. He could hear two voices, one speaking in the Geonosian dialect, the other in Basic over a hologram, but in a deep, intimidating voice. A voice Patriot recognized from recordings as the droid leader, General Grievous.

"I don't care that you caught one group of clones, Poggle! This facility cannot be revealed to the Republic!" shouted the general. Poggle replied in Geonosian to Grievous, fear was evident in his voice. There was silence for a few moments, and then Grievous spoke again.

"Fine. Kill them how you wish. But if anything else like this happens again, I will personally come over there and throw you into the shredder myself!" Then the hologram dissipated. Patriot realized he needed to find his team, and fast. He ran past the doorway before anyone could notice him and headed straight for the next door. Upon entering, he came into what he realized was where the energy readings had come from. The room was a small factory, with a conveyor moving droid parts through to be assembled, parts Patriot recognized to create more probes like the one he dealt with earlier. If these things leave this factory, Patriot thought, There's no telling what kinds of damage they could do behind our lines. Then he heard the voices.

Someone was shouting and curing at someone else to let them go. Hunter! Patriot quickly followed where the voice came from. Then he saw the Bad Batch on a high platform on the opposite end of the room. They were in cuffs and about to be pushed onto a part of the conveyor that went right to a set of blades cutting up the metal. Patriot racked his brain about what to do, then realized his rifle had a sniper setting. He ducked behind a pile of crates, set his rifle to sniper mode and aimed through a gap in the crates. Zooming in on the scope, he could see a group of three Super Battle Droids getting ready to push the team from the ledge onto the belt. Aiming the rifle, he took the first shot, hitting the first Super square in the face. As it fell, the other two frantically looked around to see where the shot came from, only for the next one to be shot in the back and the other to take two hits to the chest.

The Bad Batch looked confused.

"Uhhhhh, guys?" said Crosshair, "What was that?"

"It wasn't me; I swear!" Wrecker yelled.

Rolling his eyes, Patriot came out from behind the crates and grappled onto the ledge his teammates were on with the grappling hook on his wrist.

"Thought you guys could use a hand," he said walking up to them and proceeding to disable their cuffs.

"Thanks for the help, Patriot." Hunter grinned, "I didn't know you had it in you yet."

"Told you it wasn't me!" Wrecker said.

"Now how do we get out of here?" Tech said.

"The tunnel we used to get in should be clear." Patriot responded, "But we can't go just yet. This factory is creating a new model of probe droid, I had to deal with one back at the ship. If we go now, the Separatists will have more time to manufacture these things and deploy them, which I personally cannot let happen. We must destroy this factory."

"To do that we will need to find the control room." Tech said.

"Don't worry, I passed it on the way here. Now are you with me or not?"

The others paused for a few moments, then Hunter spoke: "Well, Wrecker, guess you get to destroy something after all."

A few minutes later, the team blasted their way into the control room, destroying every droid inside. Then, after setting and arming several thermal charges, they bolted out of the room and back to the ship, Patriot leading the way. Once everyone was on board, Crosshair piloted the ship off the plateau and into the air, and just in time. Just then, the charges went off, destroying the control room and causing a chain reaction that destroyed the entire factory. Wrecker looked behind at the spire, flames pouring from inside, and shed tears of joy.

"It's so beautiful..." he said.

No one relaxed until the shuttle had left the planet and went into hyperspace.

"I gotta hand it to you, Patriot," Hunter began, "You really saved our skins back there. Thank you."

"Your shooting wasn't half bad either." said Crosshair, "though you could probably still use a few lessons from me."

"I'll consider it." Said Patriot, "right now I'm just glad we made it out of there alive."

"And that we destroyed the factory?" Wrecker asked.

Patriot smiled: "Yeah, that too."