To The Battlefront!

My first day as a member of the 501st. It was hot, it was sandy, chaotic, nothing at all like the simulations on Kamino. Of course that’s pretty much the way it was for all of us, wasn’t it? All that breeding, all those years of training. It doesn’t really prepare you for all the screaming or the blood, does it? Frankly, I’m still amazed we made it through the first hour, never mind the first day.

We arrived on Geonosis guns ablaze as shots were screaming in from every direction. The droid army was already attempting to gun us down before we had landed. Some of the men from the 502nd legion were too trigger happy for their own good; they jumped ship when a blast streaked past them. Most of them didn't survive the jump. Fools. The rest of them started shooting randomly, taking pot shots at Spider walkers. They never stood a chance. The Spider took one shot and disintegrated all of them; not even their armor or weapons were left. When I think back, it was not a sacrifice in vain; they provided a little distraction, buying us time to land safely and take cover.

Our first priority was to secure checkpoint Alpha, which the droids made sure we didn't have an easy time of. I was the first to reach the area and took cover behind a massive rock. I did so just in time, a blaster bolt whizzed past my helmet and as a I peered through a gap between the rocks, I saw a Super Battle Droid looking straight at me. I signaled a fellow soldier to fire random shots in his vicinity. The Super was confused as he couldn't make a visual on my comrade. I hastily leapt from my cover and pulled the trigger automatically. It's just as well I aimed my gun in the right direction otherwise I would've taken out a member of the 503rd who was sneaking up behind the Super. With a loud thud, the Super came crashing down, sparks flying from its chassis and fizzing until it died. All I could hear were the sounds of thermal detonators blowing up and the sounds of droids going out of control when hit with a hail of blaster bolts. When the 505th landed we easily secured checkpoint Alpha. There were droid casings as far as the eye could see yet in the distance we could still hear gunfire and explosions leading us to the conclusion that this battle wouldn't be an easy one.

Our next objective was to take down a damaged hailfire droid. Simple enough, right? Wrong. While the hailfire droid was very damaged, the droids wanted to protect it with their "lives". As soon as we moved over to it, a flood of droids engulfed the 501st. We were outnumbered and outgunned, little did the droids know we had planned for this and the 502nd came from behind. As the droids prepared to gun us down, we signaled the 502nd to start firing. The droids attention turned to the 502nd giving us a perfect opportunity to shoot them in the back. Half the droids started shooting at us, the other half focused on the 502nd, which gave us a great advantage. With about 20 or so droids left we heard a buzzing sound and blaster bolts started raining down on us. We looked up to see some Geonosians firing on us. They had arrived to help the droids. They were hovering over us shooting wildly into the mix. Jet troopers from the 503rd were sent to take out the Geonosians. With the ensuing battle overhead taken care of, we again focused our attention on the droids. A few 502nd troops threw a few grenades into the crowd, nearly taking out a bunch of his own battalion but completely destroying the droids in the blast path. Ten droids down, ten to go. We had easily regained the upper hand in this small battle and a few crack shots and the droids were destroyed. We were free to take down the hailfire. All five specialist grenadiers from the 502nd lobbed their respective grenades under the hailfire and the resulting fireworks were something of dreams. Our dreams were quickly demolished as reality set in. The CIS were on their way.

We had but a moment to breathe as our next objective was to take control of the downed Techno Union ship as the CIS rained in. About 10 of the 501st made their way into the down Techno Union ship and secured it while the rest of us took cover and started suppressing the incoming CIS. All was going smoothly, that is until a spider droid came out of nowhere, and took our 10 securing 501st out. As long as we could hold off the droids, we knew we could send another team to secure the ship but what of the spider? Would it fire again or would it be focusing more on the closer airborne jet troopers and hilltop snipers? We decided to take a chance and risk it. I searched for an ammunition droid to reload my grenades and threw one just in front of the droids to cover my team's advance. The blast was close enough to disable the droids ocular receptors yet too far to destroy the droids. The nearby troopers made short work of the last few droids. The hull of the Techno Union ship was like the skeletal remains of a Rancor, only 10 times as big. Mossy growth had started to sprout throughout the ship and swarms of Fefze's, who were used to the hot temperature of their home planet Fef, had made the insides of the ship their home. A few members of our little squad had started setting up our equipment while the rest of us made sure we weren't to be killed. Just as a flood of assault droids came out of a tunnel, we had taken control of the ship, all hope was not lost.

In the firefight, our ammunition and health droids had been caught in the crossfire and subsequently damaged. The reason our boys had an advantage in this war was the fact that we had ammunition and health droids, our Geonosian and droid opponents did not. We were on foreign soil and this gave the advantage to the Geonosians but seeing that we had these helpful droids and our handy jet troopers, the advantage swung in our favor.



(NOTE: Some of the dialogue in this story is straight from the game, I do not take ownership for it and full credit goes to LucasArts for those pieces of dialogue from the game.)