"You know, I'm not a fan of being on the defensive. Tension plays hell on your nerves. Rather be storming a separatist held planet than be sitting in a graveyard." Trooper Vulcan quipped, running a cloth over his over his RPS-6 launcher as he sat behind the prefab fortifications about forty meters to 1st squad's 3 o'clock. The terrain was much the same ahead of them last time Vulcan checked, though the copse of trees ended at their 11 and gave way to more flat lands. Their position was a two story tower, providing a marginally superior line of sight. Vulcan wasn't confident he could nail a hard target on the horizon from this range, but absent a Rotary Gunner or an attached designated marksman he found himself stuck on very prominent high ground.

“Damn rook. Don’t they teach you brats on Kamino to appreciate the damned silence while you can anymore?” The trooper standing attentive at the firing line beside him didn't lower the binoculars from his visor when he questioned, "Or are you really that desperate for the meat grinder?"

Vulcan managed to convey a good deal of incredulity through a tilt of his blast scorched helmet. "What? No. That's more Ruckus and Trouble's thing, Swallow."

Swallow, 2nd Squad's longest surviving scout trooper grumbled something unintelligible but undoubtedly profane and directed towards the exuberant rifleman he sorely wished shared in the squad's dismal luck. “One day those wastes of genes are going to piss off the wrong CO. If the Sergeant was actually around—”

“Hey, you can’t hold it against him if he’s injured.” Vulcan spoke in defense of the absentee squad leader. “Doesn’t every clone want to follow a man who can lead from the front?”

The scout snorted, returning to survey the future battlefield. “I’ll give the Sgt. Bacta his due when he stops being the first one shot and gets out of the damn recuperation tank.”

There had been talk around the mess that Bacta was throwing himself into enemy fire so he could get out of fighting, while some others thought he just had a death wish. Swallow was of the opinion he was the poor clone officially in charge of 1st Squad, 3rd Platoon Rage Company, more commonly referred to as Leper Squad.