After leaving Ganthu, the boys head out to Zuth. The armies are able to take a city for the republic, but they are now in a stalemate. After two weeks of gaining and losing ground, not much progress has been made. The squad are currently camping in a derelict building. Rain steadily falls as they awaken to another day of trying to gain some ground.

Cook has been taking up boxing, training and sparring with the other members of his squad. 28 has been even more obsessive taking care of his gun with the excess moisture in the air. Rat has gained mastery of his new 3D printer that lives in his chassis. He can make weapons and armor for the crew! Tower has been keeping up with his training along with Cook.

Commander Frost eventually calls Havok Squad to go on a recon mission. He believes the enemies are prepping for a large scale assault and wants confirmation to preemptively attack. They can’t see anything from space due to the rainclouds, and any smaller scale ships get shot down when they get close. Frost gives them direction to where they suspect the enemies are holed up. Rat creates a small scouting drone and some grenades to supply the team with.

Havok Squad make their way through the city through ruined buildings, walking along the ground floor and avoiding the streets as much as possible. The weather makes visibility difficult. 28 and the drone scout ahead of the group while Rat, Tower, and Cook take up the rear. 28 finds that the city’s militia have oddly been using slug weapons as he finds bullet holes in walls and barricades from fire fights during the scuffle. Though, perhaps it isn’t so odd since this planet has several industrial factories made for making them. He finds himself outside a bank turned bunker and while sneaking about spots a handful of militia members outside it. 28 says it’s extremely undermanned given how large the building is and how well protected it is. The militia members don’t have many weapons or armor. 28 sets up a sniper’s nest across the street, ready for combat. Rat, Tower, and Cook take up positions hidden nearby. Rat sends his drone in, finding the ~20 guards 28 initially estimated is actually closer to ~10, as many of the helmets sticking out behind sandbags are just that. Helmets.

A very auspicious looking man walks out of the main doors with two guards as he checks up on the guards outside. While the door is open, the drone is able to sneak inside. It hides in the shadows, behind storage containers, crates, and tables. The drone is able to maneuver to some unprotected terminals and downloads the information, transmitting it directly to Rat. They’re able to find some trade lines and find where they get their food and supplies. They also find this outpost originally had over 100 guards, but 70 of them were pulled out to other locations where they are planning some other mysterious shenanigans. The drone is able to get itself out unseen and the squad agree they should actually just do some recon and head back with their information.

After parsing the information and determining what Frost needs to know, they realize their comms have been jammed. Nothing to do but keep moving and hope they make it out of the range soon. While walking, they hear loud thudding sounds as they are soon bombarded by artillery. Tower, Rat, and most of the other clones are able to get under cover, while Cook, 28, Hal, Frag, and Shrapnel are caught in the fire. Cook, 28, and Hal are okay all things considered, but Frag and Shrapnel are dead. Eventually, the injured are able to make it under cover with the rest of the crew. The ground shakes violently and they can’t hear anything over the torrential downpour. After an hour of waiting for the gunfire to relent, they realize they’re going to be stuck here for awhile. They look for some sort of basement before their building gets targeted. After poking around, they find a hidden ladder in a cabinet and start climbing down. It appears to be a utility shaft meant for HVAC and electrical work, but seems to have been used for smuggling since the fighting started. Abandoned illegal guns, ammunition, and clothing are strewn about.

Among the guns, Tower finds a disassembled Gith and Wesson revolver. It’s in pieces, but it looks large and heavy. Tower knows he needs it, naming it “The Doberman”. Now that they’re safe, they have more time to think about the sudden artillery attack. It comes in goes in a heavy sweeping motion steadily getting closer to republic lines. They seem to be destroying the now man’s land between bases in preparation for something bigger. Now having more time to look at the files, Rat finds some encrypted files, Operation Libra and Operation Comet. Rat begins decrypting Operation Libra first, revealing it’s written by Anthrax, the droid they had met previously. The plan is the combination of jamming comms by ships neutraling in the air and stealthy land ships, in combination with ships dropping off thousands of B1 droids. They’re attempting to take cities by launching large artillery barrages and then releasing droids on anything that’s left. They agree to retreat back to HQ. Nothing is left above ground, they’ll be extremely vulnerable travelling back. It’ll take more than a day, and by then, they figure the B1s will already be on them. They decide their only other option is to turn back and attempt finding the rest of Avalanche Company at the building they were staying at before. From the 144 members of Avalanche before, we are now left with 30 able bodied clones and 25 wounded in addition to Havok Squad. Frost is injured, missing his right leg.

Lieutenant Snow, the third in charge, is pretty banged up and overwhelmed with the whole situation. Some weapons are salvaged, but not many. Rat gets on 3D printing some ammunition for the Doberman while Cook helps patch up the parking garage they’re holed up in for the inevitable B1 attack. While looking out on sentry duty, the squad sees beige vehicles in the far distance, estimating over 1200 B1 droids are aboard them.