| abstract
| - It is a beautiful day to be out and about, the busiest sector of New Alderaan remains without a doubt the Belleau-a-lir district, oddly named it might be. Gustaf is out and about today, hoping that he will receive news that is long-awaited, still, he is not one to pass up the fun and relaxation to be had. Vandelhelm has been a rather hard locale to enjoy oneself in, what with being wanted by the VCS and the local Imperial forces no less. The man, surprisingly enough, has had a change of clothing, dark trousers and a long knee-length coat worn over a shirt of some shirt. Clean if not entirely chic or things of the sort. Kalna seems to have made herself comfortable on a bench in the Belleau-a-Lir district, watching the crowd pass as she munches on the sort of artery-clogging meal that the health-conscious generally avoid. But with the sort of life she lives... well. Sometimes it makes more sense to just enjoy the moment, and ignore possible future consequences. She munches on her fried snacks before lifting a large, messy, meaty hot sandwhich to her mouth for a good bite. Sooooo goooooood... "Were you not taught, young lady, that one should eat in a more proper manner.", it was not hard to spot Kalna, his constant observation of his surroundings having made it a matter of when rather than if. Gustaf made his way over to that bench, moving through that crowd as quickly as he could so as to not draw many gazes. With his greeting, of sorts, having been given, the man join Kalna at the bench. "Do you come here often or are you...working?", yes, his opinion of the woman's true nature was most certainly solidified. "Mmm," is Kalna's immediate response, as she chews on her sizeable bite. It's a few moments before she swallows and makes an attempt at replying to the man, after wiping some of the sauce from her mouth. "I'm not the type to act like a 'young lady,' so obviously you have me mistaken for someone else," she replies with a quirk of her lips. "And I like to come here in my off hours. Pick up some food, maybe do some shopping, or catch some entertainment... Whatever I'm in the mood for." "I suppose so, I could never get Baral to act properly and follow etiquette, no matter how hard his mother or I tried.", Gustaf's reply that, and soon after he is crossing his arms and focusing his gaze on the crowd passing before them, right leg crossed over the right. "You seem as well-connected as you are dangerous Miss...", the name thought over the length of a blink of his unnaturraly blue eyes. "Kalna. Would it be too much to ask what made you learn how to fight so well?" "There's a war going on," Kalna replies pointedly, before offering Gustaf some of her fries. "I fight so others won't have to," she explains. "To protect my friends, and my home." And because the Imperials forced her to learn, strangely enough. She leaves that part off, though. Instead she turns watchful eyes on the man beside her before she asks, "Is your family back on Vandelhelm?" Gustaf's nodded answer is not long in come, though it takes him a bit of time before he speaks. "Yes, he is...about your age, Baral, my wife however died not long ago. He is waiting for me there, along with what retainers our family still has and though who remain loyal to Vandelhelm." A dark look passes over his efaturesthen, though it is quickly dispelled. "Will you come with me then, Miss Kalna? With the weapons delivered, I will be leaving soon, your Senator friend and the Republican military know how to reach me." "I'm sorry about your wife," Kalna murmurs solemnly, reaching out to rest one hand one the man's shoulder briefly. "It seems no one escapes the war unscathed. And of course I will come with you, but only-" she raises that hand off his shoulder to hold up one finger pointedly, "if you stop with this 'Miss' nonsense. It's just Kalna, please." He seems almost startled at the touch, but Gustaf only nods after a moment, a slight smile granted Kalna. "Kalna it is then." After a quick look around to confirm that none are too close, Gustaf continues on, "We will be landing on a remote part of Vandelhelm City, the capital. Ideally, we should make our approach through the asteroid belt itself to escape detection, it will be extremely difficult, but if you aren't certain we can make it, then we might as well try our luck at making a regular approach. Once we make it past the asteroid belt, it is a matter of making a run for one of the moons and then hiding out there until we can land in the city." He stops then, making certain that Kalna is following, and above all agreeing to what he says before going on. "I'm a decent pilot, among my other skills," Kalna reassures Gustaf, "so you're in luck there. I should be able to pull it off for you. And it won't be my first time going through an asteroid field." "Perfect then, Mi...Kalna. We've enough weapons to arm a small force and maintain them in the field, but for now, we gotta get rid of the Vandelhelm Cooperation Syndicate. They might as well be an Imperial front for all the good they're doing at taking on assassination missions and the like on all who criticize the local government." With that, the man stands up and motions Kalna to join him. "We should get going." The trip to the spaceport passes rather uneventfully, a large speeder rented to contain all the cargo boxes that carry Gustaf's precious items. From Ord Mantell to Vandelhelm, it takes a fairly long time, a circuitous route decided upon in order to bypass the more crowded and patrolled hyperlanes. Thankfully, some undisclosed amount of time later, they finally jump back to real space, none the worse ofr wear given the recreation facilities available on their chosen vessel. Kalna is confronted with the dead of space, with only faint dots to break the landscape, though just beyond visual range is the formidable asteroid belt, perhaps even a match to Hoth's. "There, you can see Vandelhelm, take us in Kalna.", Gustaf is dressed in his usual style of garb, though there is now the addition of a blaster at his waist. As Gustaf suggests they leave, Kalna eyes the sandwich in her hands, before letting out a sigh. After one last, large bite she tosses the rest in the nearest bin before turning to follow the man, still chewing on her last mouthful. Arriving in Vandelhelm's system a considerable amount of time later, she studies the asteroid field in front of her, watching for a break in the endless stream of monsteriously large rocks. "Nice," she murmurs quietly. "You know how to show a girl a good time. I /love/ a challenge." An eager glint starts in Kalna's eyes, before she finally dives, abruptly, into the field. Asteroid to the right of them, asteroid to the left of them, asteroid in front of them volleyed and thundered...wait, no, that's not right. Their vessel, whatever model and whomever it may belong to, is light and maneuverable enough that it seems truly puny in comparison to some of the large formations of rocks zooming by. But then, this might as well be child's play for the young woman given how easy their vessel seems to glide by, only the smallest of the rocks striking them, and those are small enough for the deflectors to hold. Some time later, they finally emerge from the asteroid field, having made several course corrections at Gustaf's urging to make certain that they arrived at the least likely spot to run into a patrol. In the distance, the faint outlines of a planet can be seen, the overall brown look to it interupted only by the blue of the seas and greens of forests. Whatever luck was on their side during their trek through the field behind seems to have quickly evaporated. Proof of that coming in the form of klaxons going off through the ship as at the very edge of their sensor range, a lone Imperial starfighter can be seen. "Damn, they might catch us.", Gustaf says through gritted teeth, his hands a blur over his console as he tries to figure out where to take them. "There, the seventh moon, if we put on the gas.", an odd expression to say the least, "We might be able to make it before that Imperial knows we are here." Kalna appears to have /thoroughly enjoyed the ride through the asteroid field, to judge by the expression on her features, and is more than happy to follow Gustaf's further instructions, hurrying towards the 7th moon. "How often to I get to make this run?" she asks. "If we weren't in such a hurry, I might suggest going back through a few more times." His frown is put aside long enough to grant Kalna a startled look, "You are far too dangerous even for the likes of me.", though that frown is quick to return as they duck and dodge whatever remnants of the asteroid field can be found on its outskirts, and they are quickly making their way to the planet's seventh moon. Fortunately, they are able to get on the other side of it and land on its barren, crater-covered surface just before the Tie is able to pick them up. "Let's stay here for a while, sensors are on passive. When it leaves, I'll send a communique through a secure channel to tell them we are here. In the meanwhile, would you mind telling me where you got those reflexes?" Kalna leans back into her seat, a broad satisfied smile on her features as she looks up through the viewport at the asteriod field, continuing to plan potential pathways through it. "Swoop racing," she admits easily. "And smuggling. I've tried my hands at both. Plus, it runs in the family. My dad was a fighter pilot." "What side?", though it would be hard to miss the grimace given at the mention of swoop racing. "What is with youth, these days? Bolo-ball was good enough entertainment in my days, though I suppose if you're from the Core you might not know it." How anyone cannot know bolo-ball, or limmie as some call it, is a veritable mystery to him, but so are other things. "We can go.", he says after some time, a quick break having been taken to run back and grab Kalna and himself a sandwhich as well as some sort of soda. "They're waiting for us, just follow the course plotted and we should be able to land undetected and if not, my men will prepare a cover story for us as an Agamarian freighter carrying foodstuffs." "He flew for his planet, actually," Kalna admits quietly. "Independently. As you can imagine, the Empire didn't take kindly to that, so..." She falls silent on the subject, her expression clouding over briefly before she adds, "That was a very long time ago, though." She changes topics abruptly as she adds, "Ord Mantell has a bolo-ball team, but I'm far more apt to attend swoop races than bolo-ball matches." Illegal swoop races... She waits patiently as Gustaf fetches sandwiches for them, and then munches in companionable silence, until he gives them the command to move on again. "Gotcha. Should be easy enough." "My apologies, Kalna, too many people have lost too much." For the remainder of their trip, things pass by both quickly and quietly, the remainder of his sandwhich finished and in some three hours time, they are flying over Vandelhelm City. Little attention is paid to them as there are many such ships making their way onto and out of the planet at any moment. "There.", his hand raised to point out a smaller spaceport than the one they flew over some minutes ago. "We'll land there, it's for the less important cargo and generally speaking less monitored." A beep from his console signals that they have a message waiting from there, and soon a young man's, presumably, voice is heard. "Father, we have everything ready and a legal reason for you to be here prepared. We'll meet you on the ground in landing spot 7." "Seven, seven..." Kalna murmurs quietly, as she skims the area, searching for her landing location. She spots it without too much trouble, and brings the ship in easily, coming to a gentle landing. "There you are. And not a scratch on the cargo, I'd wager," she replies with some pride, before she starts running through the ship's shutdown procedures. Her hands fly easily and automatically over the console, as accustomed as she remains to flying Gnats. When she's finished, she unbuckles her harness, and rises with a stretch. "Looking forward to seeing this world of yours, Gustaf. And meeting this son of yours. About my age, you said?" The look she gives him is entirely teasing, as she allows him to imagine for himself the sort of trouble she'd be able to drag his child into. Swoop races, smuggling, asteroid fields... And top secret New Republic pseudo-military operations. A stern frown is granted Kalna, Baral is enough of a scoundrel as it is without her help in pushing the boy anymore towards an inappropriate path. "Indeed, who knows, it may come to be that you might find yourself married to nobility, part an ancient and most honourable house.", let her think that he means to set her up, that should be enough to frighten off the woman. And speaking of the cargo, he carefully checks over it before opening the vessel's main ramp when the identity of the men beginning to mill around the vessel. One of the first to climb aboard is a lanky young man, blonde hair held back in a ponytail and a shirt and some trousers with one of those popular bands that those his age seem obsessed over plastered on his shirt. "Father...", his words trailing off as he catches sight of Kalna, a brow quirked in surprise. On his heels are others, including two Sullustans, not uncommon given their numbers on the planet, who head straight to the container boxes with repulsor-sleds in tow. Kalna laughs outright at Gustaf's reaction, before accompanying him into the hold. "Baral, is it?" she asks the man as he steps into the hold, then offers one hand out towards him. "Kalna Vessan. Pilot and trouble-maker. I hear tell there's some trouble you folks need started around here." "A pleasure to meet you, Kalna. Hopefully you can help us get rid of this rodent infection we have...", and at this, he is cut off by his father, breaking off the handshake as he steps between the two. "Get the cargo loaded up and bring it back to our base. Get to it, Baral, you've work to do." His attempts, though rather obvious, at keeping them part as Baral simply snickers and goes to help the others load up the containers. "I'll take you on a ride around the city, but you should put on something to make you less obvious.", a light jacket with high collar and hoodie handed her, one very much like the one he is putting on, and quickly enough he is walking down the ship's ramp, inviting Brin to join him as they head towards a speeder kept ready for them. Baral's snicker is echoed in Kalna's snort, before she turns her attention towards Gustaf, and nods in agreement with his words. "Of course," she replies, accepting the jacket and slipping it on, buttoning the high collar. How... uncomfortable. "Lead the way. Looking forward to getting a look at the world." Hopping into the driver seat, Gustaf drives off as soon as the young woman is seated, the backroads chosen rather than the busier avenues and boulevards of the city. Still, it makes their commute much quicker than they would have been, and along the way he points out a few sights of the place, having taken his role as a guide to heart. The first stop they make is some distance away from a large structure, its high walls dominating the landscape and hiding nearly all sight of everything beyond save the tallest buildings. "That's the heart of government in Vandelhelm now, not the parliament, but rather the local Imperial government headquarters. All those who are within are either those who have taken up with the enemy or have been parachuted here to rule us." The level of traffic into and out of the centre is enough to prove that it is quite an important locale if the Imperial Army guards and occasional Stormtroopers weren't proof of that. Kalna studies the building curiously, nodding only vaguely in reponse to Gustaf's words. "Right," she replies quietly. So, one of their eventual targets. Though it's probably a little premature to imagine targeting the complex quite right. "Impressive. Do you think they built the wall tall enough...?" "Tall enough?", a moment taken to puzzle out Kalna's meaning before he shrugs, "Maybe, Imperial architecture.", or a certain typist's imagination, "always left me unimpressed. But, if we ever have to attack this place, the walls will be the least of our worries." And after one final look at the government centre, the speeder is moving forward through sidestreets and residential areas. "We will have to hide out in the mountains, and that's another issue altogether so Vandelhelm City's far from our immediately military objectives." "Mountains," Kalna repeats, before letting out a quiet sigh. "Never was much of a camper, myself. But I suppose I shall have to make do." Nope, Kalna has always been a city-girl. She'll manage, though. The first sign of their next destination comes in the ofrm of a large satellite and several antennas sticking out, their use made clear enough when they can finally see the large fence around the compound as well as the heavy guard around it. "The heart of Imperial communications on the planet, all their communiques as well as military channels and command and control capacity are based there. Which explains why it is one of the most heavily defended points on the planet. It used to be used by the local defence forces before the Imperials took it over." Gustaf falls silent after hearing a tap on the front passenger-side window, his hand quickly reaching for a blaster hidden beneath his seat before he stops. The person at the cause of all this is a local foodvendor having braved the traffic of this seat to try and sell his wares to some of those parked here. Kalna studies what's visible of the satellites and antennas, an eager light on her eyes as the tries to think of way to disable the location: preferable without damaging it beyond use for when they do manage to take the planet. Such thoughts are, probably, years down the line. Like Gustaf, her own hand reaches for her blaster at the knock on the window, though when she spots the vendor, she shakes her head at the man's offer. "No thank you, I'm quite full right now," she assures him. It takes an insistent no-thank-you from Gustaf before the hawker goes away to bother the next car down the road, "Our final target for the day, and the one that we'll be hitting soon. The headquarters of the VSC." The drive is much longer than before, and Gustaf is fairly silent as the vehicle heads from the governmental area of the city to one of its shopping districts and finally to one of its lower areas, the aptly-named Lower Quarters. "There.", he says, pointing with one hands toward a fair-sized building in the middle of a square some distance in front of them. "That's where the VSC's command is based, and to have any chance at taking it out and appropriating its holdings, we have to eliminate them. Will that be a problem?", being willing to kill in the defence of others or oneself is one thing, hunting out other people is a completely different one. Kalna misinterprets the question entirely, it's so much of a non-issue for her, apparantly. "What forces do they have?" she asks instead, trying to think of the logistics needed for such a strike. "How much do we know of their security and resources? Do we have an inside man, or know anyone who can be bought to provide information?" "My second in command is embedded within them. I had him betray me, or at least pretend to, by giving up my intention to head to Ord Mantell after we stole their credits. He has earned the confidence of their higher command and been declared as assistant to their head of security." Which does place under a new light the attacks that have taken place while he was on Ord Mantell. "I apologize for all the damage I caused on your planet, but it was necessary if we were to convince them to take him in. I will face whatever charges are brought against me after Vandelhelm is freed." A smirk grows slowly on Kalna's expresion, before she nods her head in understanding. "Brilliant," she murmurs in quiet satisfaction. "Perfect. Don't worry about charges. I don't think it'll be a problem." A shrug given despite Kalna's reassurances, then again,. it might as well be the farthest thing from his mind. "Three above-ground levels, two below that. The bottom one is where the maintenance tunnels and the secondary garage is, that one is reserved for the higher-ups and when they have to make a quick getaway. It used to be a bigger concern of theirs when the law was actually fighting them instead of using them as with the Imperials. Above that, is the primary vehicle depot. The ground floor is the reception area and some offices. Second one is where their armoury and more discrete offices and residences. Above that, the highest floor is where their command can be found and where they stash most of their physical assets and credit reserves." "Sounds fun to me," Kalna replies. Yeah, he probably really should keep his son far, far away. "What sort of timeline were you planning on? That's a pretty sizeable hit to prepare for. Though I presume that most of your men, at this point, have some planning...?" "All in all, there should be roughly 25 to 30 of them to fight off. We'll be going in with fifteen. In truth, this will be three attacks. Baral will be leading another ten men against one of the VCS' major depots and storage areas on the outskirts of the city. The goal will be to get as many supplies, weapons, vehicles and the like from there before they're made of, and a further ten men will be led by Dllr Roap, that was one of the Sullustan you saw earlier, to hit another depot." Gustaf replies before reaching into a compartment installed in the card's dash, pulling out a datapad and handing it to Kalna. "That's the details of the three attacks, Roap, Baral and my 2ndIC have been working on it while we were gone. My group will be going through the city sewers, into one of the compound's maintenance tunnels and from there we'll get out into the lowest floor and fight our way up. My 2ndIC has three men with him, and he'll try and help us as best as he can, but until we hit the 2nd floor, he can't break his cover. It's the only hope we have of not letting any of the precious supplies be stolen, not letting them suspect anything and to not give the Imperials time enough to quarantine the area. We'll be overwhelmed by a factor of anywhere from 1.5 to 2, but...well are you still in Kalna?" "It wouldn't be sporting to them otherwise, would it?" Kalna replies. Yeah, that's probably overconfidence talking. She accepts the datapad, her attention turning from her study of the building, to an intense scrutiny of the screen in front of her. "And how badly will Balar and his forces be out-numbered?" she asks. "By the same margin?" She hopes, for Gustaf's sake, that nothing happens to the blonde-haired man. "Balar and Roap will be going with roughly equal odds, we need to overwhelm the guards at those depots before anything gets damaged or they run away with anything. We'll be the only group overwhelmed, a required risk unfortunately." A suspicious look given Kalna at the mention of Baral but it is soon enough dismissed as normal concern for a comrade-at-arms. "We should head back, can't take too many chances that we'll be seen." "Good," Kalna replies firmly. "Good. I wouldn't want us to be out-gunned on all three fronts. Do we have as much information on the security at the other two locations as your second in command is supplying us on this one?" She continues to flip through the the information on the screen, letting out quiet, thoughtful sounds as she reads over some of the data. "I may see if I can bring in a few more people to further support us. No promises, but there are a few others I trust, who are fairly capable." She continues to talk over the details of the plan with Gustaf as their speeder moves away from the building.
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