[b]There is a certain appeal to the calm before the storm. No words were spoken between the five Mando warriors as they sat in cold meditation, the weight of their weaponry heavy in their hands. Life, death, failure, victory, all possibilities for the near future, a certainty only moments away, and yet impossibly far. The entire thing seemed surreal to Javi Knol. The years of his life, the grueling training, the boring drills, and the unwavering hatred all amounting to this one moment of energy and adrenaline. Javi felt the same way before every conflict. His moral conscious, his fear, and his rationality would all compete, pleading, begging, and screaming for him not to do what he was set to do. But in the end they always failed. Javi would partake in this high stakes game of problem solving, understanding the severe consequences for failure. Except failure and death wasn’t an option anymore. He was a Mando’ade Warrior now, and he possessed a different mindset.

	The tarp was torn away, and the battle began. Power surged from the jetpack launching Javi off his feet and carrying him over the barrier, depositing him unceremoniously upon the lawn. His cold breakfast lurched in his stomach and then settled; as did his reason, morality, and fear, each emotion fading into silence at last. All that remained was the evolutionary trait that all creatures possessed, and the training etched upon stone inside his head. Roll, get down, shoot, run. Javi operated like a well-oiled machine, trusting his fellow clan mates to protect him just as he did for them. Whatever differences that existed between them evaporated like smoke on the wind. They would succeed together, or die alone. It was their training and determination against their enemy’s, and Javi wasn’t about to allow Imperial loyalist best him.

	Teeth gritted to a near breaking point Javi kept pace behind Old Man Resol, his once cold T-21 now hot, even through his gauntlets. The automatic rifle unleashed bursts of death at an unprecedented rate, the perfect weapon to discourage any hopeful troopers from taking shots at the exposed Mandos. One trooper, by mere chance alone scored a hit in the brief elapses between Javi’s bursts, his red bolt connecting with Javi’s shoulder plate. The armor burned but held, the warning singeing deeper than any burn ever could. Be more vigilant! The Corellian gunner returned fire, but the trooper ducked down, popping up again a few seconds later to release a more accurate shot. He never got a chance to learn his lesson, or revise his foolishness. Javi made sure of it.

	Steam rose off the superheated barrel hissing eerily as the damp air surrounding them reacted to the unnaturally hot weapon. The last one inside Javi thumped his T-21 in irritation, not liking what he was seeing. The blaster shouldn’t be heating up so fast, even though Javi was shooting at an unmatched rate the cooling fluids should have kept it at least touchable for another three hundred rounds at least. Problems like this could kill a man, through no fault of his own. On such a high stakes mission dealing with an overheating firearm was not a predicament Javi wanted to be in. [color=aba000]“Damned, humid weather, damned cursed planet.” [/color]Javi muttered, even as he paced backwards, following the footsteps of his comrades. At least due to the slight lull in the battle the weapon would have the opportunity to cool. Javi shifted the gun down to a hip-line position, providing rear security for his squad, watching the receding corners, and passageways warily. A women darted across the room behind them, taking cover behind a cushioned chair. Javi jerked instinctively, T-21 raised to kill but he hesitated. Obviously she wasn’t a combatant. Or was she? Racked by indecision Javi let the women alone, giving only a word of warning to his fellows to watch for noncombatants. [color=aba000]“I don’t like this, we’ve got to many uncovered positions from which they could spring.” [/color]He added, flinching yet again as another supposed noncombatant scurried away. [color=aba000]“The Imps will have an easy time surrounding us.” [/color]Javi glanced over towards Kast, the team’s explosive expert. [color=aba000]“Maybe add some trip mines with leg poppers? So we don’t have any unwelcome guests joining us without us being in the know.”[/color]
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