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| - The expression on Silas's face, the waving of his neck and cheek fur, and how he held his arms told the story of what he was thinking and feeling. Laera didn't need the Force to tell her that he was deeply troubled by what she had told him. “Are you absolutely certain that she didn't do anything to hurt you?” “Other than nearly causing me to kill her in cold blood, no,” Laera admitted, grateful that he seemed to have accepted her decision to send the Sa'ari packing. “And I don't need to remind you of what that means to a Jedi.” The Bothan didn't need reminding. Far from it, in fact; he was almost as understanding as Laera had been after hearing Ari's explanation of why she had assaulted her. After catching a quick sanisteam before getting back into her armor, she had gone back to the aft hold to tell him everything of what had transpired in the armory, down to the smallest detail, the tiniest nuance of emotion. She wasn't worried about time, they had it in abundance since it was now obvious that the tenants of Bad Alshir possessed nothing that was even remotely close to the kind of sensor technology and scouting protocols that the Marine base had employed. For his part Silas had listened patiently, interrupting only rarely in order to clarify some obscure point, and seemed genuinely sympathetic—for both parties. “As long as you're okay, I'll accept that,” he said contemplatively. “I'm just glad it'll be you and me going dirtdown.” “And HK-47,” Laera reminded him. Silas cracked the ghost of a grin. “Yes, him too,” he acknowledged. “We need his blaster anyway, because I'm not all that certain about our new friends' ability to handle themselves in a lightfight.” “They're better in space, that's for sure,” Laera agreed. “For a moment, just before we made contact with the pirates, I was scared scatless.” “I know what you mean,” Silas replied ruefully. “Even after all the battles I've been in, those nerves still make my rear end pucker.” Larea crossed her arms over her breastplate. “Pre-battle jitters are common enough—they're necessary, in fact—but this was a whole different animal. Even with my ability to see a battle the way I do, it was...I'm not sure how to describe it. Even when we boarded Revan's flagship, I never felt like that.” Silas considered her sentiment for a moment. “I guess it comes down to the fact that our landers were so heavily shielded and armored. In Challenger's turrets, it's just a thin transparisteel window between you and oblivion.” He paused, then leaned on the speeder in an exaggerated fashion. “But we're getting off the subject.” Laera frowned, dropped her pensive pose, then pressed the intercom button. “Asyr, Ooryl, is everything ready?” “Ready as we'll ever be,” Asyr's voice came back, full of confidence. If Laera had her way, neither of them would ever find out about the recent incident—she would have to be careful when it came to handling Ari's impending departure. “Good,” she replied tersely. “ HK-47, report to the aft cargo hold with your weapon. Let's kick this gornt into gear.” A moment later, the hatch hissed open and the rust-red assassin droid stepped through. “Query: Is there someone that you need killed, Master?” Laera smirked at the droid, knowing how he would react. “As a matter of fact, yes. We're hitting a pirate nest soon, anyone and everyone carrying a weapon is fair game.” “Request: Master, please tell me that you are serious. Observation: I have noted that sometimes you tell people something when, in fact, you actually mean something else. Such may be the case now, and I wish to clarify the intent of your orders before initiating assassination protocols.” “Serious as a supernova,” Laera scowled, ignoring the wisecrack. “It'll be kill or be killed down there.” “Get in the speeder,” Silas ordered, cocking a thumb at the vehicle. “I'm driving.” As HK-47 made to obey, Laera climbed the back of the vehicle and secured herself in the repeating blaster turret. Silas, carrying two pistols, a belt of grenades, and a pack of demolition charges, had to wedge himself carefully into the driver's station. His and Laera's rifles, the latter a long gun which had all the hallmarks of a sniper's weapon, were tucked into holding clamps that had been grafted into the space between the two front seats. Loaded for bear, they waited patiently as the Challenger made its ingress to Bad Alshir. As the minutes ticked by, Laera meditated, taking the opportunity to center herself once more. She knew that Ari, too, was doing precisely the same thing, and that neither one of them would ever forget what had passed between them. — — — An hour later, with the ship having taken a lazy approach in on the back side of their target world, Laera felt the diffuse presence of whatever passed for the local population. They were still just entering the upper atmosphere, with another twenty minutes to go until they reached the agreed-upon drop zone, so she took the time to sharpen her focus. As she had predicted while en route from Taris, the raiders were in fact using the ruins of the Marine outpost as their headquarters. Passive scanners and optical scopes also confirmed that a small town had been built up at the base of the sloping bluff upon which the old base had been erected. Based on these readings, Laera and Silas had planned their infiltration route and packed the scout speeder with the appropriate equipment. In orbit of Bad Alshir, however, there were plenty of things to worry about. The attack force that had intercepted the Pulsar Skate was there, as well as a number of other ships which Asyr and Ooryl had identified as various other kinds of Uglies: TYE-wings (a combination of Y-wings and TIE Fighters, which they referred to as Die-wings due to their singularly useless nature), Z'ceptors (a peculiar blend of the Z-95 Headhunter and TIE Interceptor), and yet more X-TIEs. At least two squadrons' worth of fighters in total, not counting the K-wings, flitted about the system at irregular intervals, occasionally going dirtdown at a landing field that had been established on the slopes that led up to the main base. Backing them up were a Corellian corvette and a quartet of IPV-1 patrol craft, including the one that had led the attack on Mirax's freighter. “Looks like the Marauder was their flagship,” Asyr said over the intercom as Laera, Silas and HK-47 waited for dustoff. “That said, this isn't going to be easy; any hope of eliminating their space forces is going to need reinforcements.” “Just keep them busy while we infiltrate their headquarters,” Laera replied, drawing herself out of her reverie. “Nibble at them for a while. Take out single fighters or pairs flying alone as they present themselves.” “As soon as they notice that something's not right, make your run,” Silas added. “Try and tag the corvette if you can, then get the hell out of there, and they likely won't even notice you've left us on the surface. It's also possible that they've received word of the destruction of the force they sent to the Point, so they'll want revenge.” The intercom was silent for a few moments, apparently the two former Rogues were contemplating the advice given by the two former Marines. Finally Ooryl's voice came back, bearing a hint of amusement and awe. “Yes, Wedge Antilles would indeed be very glad to meet you both.” As the minutes passed, Laera took Silas's hand in hers, reaching out to him with the Force as they prepared themselves for landing. She needed his support right now, both because of what had happened in the armory, and the fact that the last time she had seen this world was in retreat after having been besieged by Mandalorian forces. “Thirty seconds to drop,” the Gand informed them, stirring the pair from their reflections. “No problems so far.” With that pronouncement, the time for contemplation was over. The Challenger, hovering three meters off the ground, opened its rear cargo hatch via a command sent from the cockpit. Silas started up the speeder's engines, then began to slowly back it out of the aft hold, the vehicle dropping slightly as it cleared the deck and began to glide away from the freighter over the rocky, uneven terrain. “Backblast clear, we're good to go. Maintain comm silence unless absolutely necessary.” Laera, from her place at the blaster turret, watched as the hold door closed and the Challenger began its brisk ascent back into space through the predawn gloom. They had been deposited in the leeward side of a large upthrust of rock within a vast landscape of alkali flats, the coordinates picked out before they had even entered the system. She primed the weapon, aimed it at the base of the outcropping, and fired off a trial burst. “Repeater is good,” she said as the brief bark of sound echoed across the landscape. “Let's move out.” The Bothan cut in power and the scout craft shot forward, accelerating to over four hundred kilometers per hour within a quarter minute. Laera, glancing down into the forward compartment, saw that Silas had brought up their course on the navigational monitor. This deep in the wastes there was precious little in terms of notable landmarks to guide them onward, but she had taken a goodly number of patrol circuits herself. It had been among Tuffass's primary dicta, that a Marine must always be aware of the ground upon which they stood guard, thus she had been able to program an appropriately circuitous route to the covert entrance that was their destination. One of the primary features of all frontier outposts that had been constructed for use by the Republic Marines was the emergency in/out. Designed to serve as an escape route if the post was about to be overrun, or for those caught outside the perimeter when an attack came, the in/out was different for every base and a closely-guarded secret. The outer entry/exit hatchway was often built just beyond the horizon, sometimes more in the case of particularly barren or harsh worlds, and cleverly hidden among whatever terrain features offered the best cover. The inner door, however, typically opened into a small armory gouged out of the crust just beneath the base itself and never accessed unless needed. This room would be rigged with low-yield shaped charges designed to blow a hole in what amounted to the floor of the lowest level, allowing a quiet ingress or egress as circumstances dictated. The hitch was this: an in/out could only be used once, and at the discretion of the base commanding officer, who was also the only person authorized to know about the passage and how to access it. Unfortunately for the raiders, Laera Reyolé had once been this base's commander. As the speeder continued ever onward, she reflected on the time she had spent here. Five long, lonely years, only occasionally broken up by week-long furloughs on more desirable worlds, spent mostly in training. Laera had arrived as a company commander, a junior lieutenant fresh from Officer Candidate School and the attendant command acclamation course. After two years she had been promoted a grade, succeeding the previous outpost commander, an older Zabrak whose career had been spent on such small outposts, who had been promoted in turn to executive officer of the 15th Marine Battalion. When she had first begun her service there, he had been dubious as to the use of the Sentinal droids that had been assigned to the garrison not long beforehand, but by the time he had left, he had been convinced by the younger woman's efforts in training her company against the combat units. The policy of regular drills that he had instituted, based on Laera's advice, had been maintained as command had passed on to her. To this day she firmly believed that it was this, combined with her reforms regarding starfighter patrols conducted by the 5th Marine flyers, that had enabled her people to put a stop to the initial Mandalorian incursion. While she hadn't exactly enjoyed her stay, after the subsequent evacuation Laera had begun to miss the regularity and familiarity of the base, particularly as the exploding conflict forced her new unit's operational tempo to kick into high gear. Bad Alshir would always remain the place where she had first tasted battle, where she had first drawn sentient blood, and where she had first experienced the rough, raw and heady nature of war. The hundred hour siege, just a bit longer than two local days, had been a watershed experience, one she would never forget. As the drone of the speeder's engines threatened to carry her off to dreamland, she meditated instead on snippets of the battle. Her initial orders, handed out with the dispassion that came with well-drilled ease, the excited report by Aurodium Nine that the Mandos' warship had been destroyed, the proton mortar barrage that had shattered the command center's transparisteel viewports, they played out in a blur before her mind's eye. It was what came afterward that she remembered the most vividly. After deferring overall command to her XO, she had gone to the armory to retrieve her blaster rifle. Moving about the inner complex and only taking short catnaps and downing ration bars amidst lulls in the ongoing assault, she had spent the next several dozen hours sniping at Mandalorians. It had been a gauntlet of blood, sweat, dirt and more sweat to make the Blast Furnace—the last hurdle of basic training and ultimate test of a recruit's mettle—look like a leisurely stroll on Alderaan. At the ninety-seventh hour, however, when her XO had informed her that the attackers were beginning to break off and head back to their transports, she had instead ordered her forces to pursue and engage the remaining Mandos. Too tired to do much else, she had maintained overwatch until the last all-clear reports had come in and the hypercomm was ringing with reports of a Republic cruiser coming in to pick up the garrison and any other citizens living there. She had slept for two solid days after that, shut up in her tiny quarters while the defenders had been evacuated straight back to Coruscant. — — — Five hours had passed before they finally arrived at the dry riverbed that led to the in/out. This planet, Laera knew, had once been possessed of much more surface water, as much as any inhabited world within the galaxy. But at some point in prehistory the star Alshir had grown dim with age, the planet's crust had exhausted its useable resources, and the ecosystem had gone into a death spiral. What flora and fauna remained at the time of its discovery had been a husk of its ancient self, just barely able to sustain itself around a few small seas of extremely salty water. In the intervening time, it seemed that what little there was had finished drying up and dying off; the riverbed they traversed now had still been a trickle when she had served here. The thought caused less of a stir within her than it should have, however, because they had a job to do here. “Coming up on Point Jenth,” Silas advised over their helmet comlink, drawing Laera's view away from the past and back onto the landscape ahead of her. “Reducing speed, distance to target is forty-one kilometers and falling.” Laera nodded to herself, recalling the details that her old CO had given. “The bed dog-legs to the left, with the right-hand bank rising sharply as we continue. We'll be in a canyon soon enough after that, look for a half-fallen arch of rock overlooking three large boulders.” “You're sure about this in/out thing?” the Bothan asked dubiously. “You never served on an outpost, dear,” Laera replied with an amused snort. “You've missed out on about half of what it's really like to be a Marine.” “Remind me to thank the War Department,” Silas retorted. “Oh, wait, I can't, because they don't exist any more!” Laera had to smother her laughter as he banked the speeder into a hard turn, mentally thanking herself for having strapped in. As they proceeded onward, the riverbed soon became a one, and then two-sided gully, deepening significantly as they neared the entrance to the in/out. For the outpost on Bad Alshir, the military engineers had chosen this particular place not only because it was thirty kilometers away from the base perimeter, but because it represented a place where one could easily hide their progress as they either evacuated the outpost, or infiltrated it. She had only ever heard of an in/out being used twice, once for an evac during the Great Sith War, and again when elements of the 20th Marine Battalion had liberated the post on Der Ostfront from the Sith a month after the battle at Mon Gazza. She held no illusions that more had taken place in the intervening centuries. A few minutes later, she caught sight of their landmark. “Slow it down, we're almost there.” Silas did as instructed, slowing the craft to a crawl. They crept up the riverbed, their eyes peeled; though Laera was the most familiar with this planet, it was HK-47 who saw it first. “Observation: Master, I believe I have spotted an anomaly in the canyon wall to our right. Explanation: There is a seam in the edifice immediately adjacent to a formation of three boulders that seem to have fallen from the cliff as the softer rock around them had eroded away.” Laera glared at the droid, though she knew he would not notice nor care. “I didn't realize your photoreceptors were that attuned,” she snorted disbelievingly. “Was that one of Revan's enhancements?” “Query: Master, need I remind you of my capabilities, and those of my creator? Commentary: I do believe that Revan knew of your secret hidey-holes, and may have used that to his advantage when formulating plans. Though I have no idea why he would have bothered to take a personal hand in the conquest of insignificant worlds like this.” With an effort, Laera reminded herself that the droid, despite his previous allegiance, was in fact on their side. “Well, isn't that handy,” she grumbled. “If you happen to spot any cunningly-disguised traps, you would do us the courtesy of pointing them out, I hope.” “Exclamation: Master, how could you even think that! If anything were to happen to you and your furry meatbag companion, I would be left here to rust!” “And don't you forget it,” Silas shot back, clopping the droid on the back of its head as he brought the speeder to a halt. “Get out before I blast you out.” As the droid mutely obeyed, Laera undid her straps and vaulted herself out of the repeater mount to land in a crouch on the sandy ground. One hand on her lightsaber, she reached in between the front seats to retrieve her weapon as Silas took his and dismounted as well. She led the way as the trio made the short trek up a small slope of scree to the base of the canyon wall, where she began to examine the stone with her hands while the other two stood watch. After a few minutes of gentle caressing, she found the hidden lever. “Stand back.” The durasteel rod was spotted with corrosion, and resisted her initial attempt to pull it down. Laera then put the Force behind her action, and with an almighty shriek the mechanism activated. She threw herself to the side as the wall cracked and buckled, sending a cascade of rust-red rubble tumbling back down the way they had come. As the dust settled, Silas walked forward, his blaster shouldered and looking for anything that might have been waiting for them. “Clear,” he said at last. “Looks a bit disused, switching to low-light optics.” “I hope you're up for a thirty-kilometer hike,” Laera said, fixing HK-47 with a glare. “It'll be the price you have to pay to get at the pirates and employ your oh-so-beloved assassination protocols.” “Statement: HK-47 is ready to carry out your appointed task, Master. Observation: In all likelihood, I would out-last the both of you in a contest of walking.” “Then you're on point.” — — — “Five and a half hours without a report,” Asyr said, her tone betraying a hint of nervousness. “You think they made it?” She, Ooryl and Ari were sitting in the Challenger's cockpit, keeping tabs on what targets they could identify. After having dropped off Laera, Silas and the assassin droid in their armed and armored landspeeder, they had made a microjump back to Crass Alshir in order to keep an eye on the pirates. At the Bothan pilot's words, T7-H6 gave a hoot and a warble. “Yes, I know they said to keep radio silence,” she told the droid. “But still...” “They will be fine,” the Gand assured her, Ari throwing a nod in for emphasis. “They will contact us if and when they need to.” “We are supposed to make a run on the corvette in a short while, are we not?” the Sa'ari asked, leaning forward to look over the sensors. “In another ninety minutes, yes,” Ooryl reminded her. “In the meantime, it might be a good idea for Ooryl to familiarize you with the port gun turret...” — — — The two-hour hike down the tunnel that led to the inner side of the in/out passed without incident, the trio arriving at a plain-looking door that marked the passage's terminus. The effort involved reminded Laera of the halcyon days of her young adulthood, before she had become a drill instructor, when she would lead the troopers in her squad on fitness runs through the countryside. Even in her mid-forties, the trek was invigorating, and she hadn't needed to draw upon the Force to keep pace. Silas, on the other hand, was a different story, his aura betraying how bedraggled he felt. “Haven't gone on a jog like that since my pleb year,” he remarked ruefully, his breath coming in short gasps. “We are there, aren't we?” “We're here,” Laera said, resisting the urge to laugh. “That's the trouble with you Academy boys, you don't get enough exercise.” Silas replied by clicking his heels and stepping back, allowing her to open the way further. Laera slung her rifle, detached her lightsaber from its belt hook and activated it, then carved the door away with two quick swipes of her cerulean blade. Keeping the pieces suspended in midair with her mind, she let them down gently. “Stay here while I check the charges,” she instructed. “If they're no good after all this time, we'll have to use what you brought.” “So that's why you had me pack some det-cord,” Silas pondered. “I wasn't sure at first.” “These things aren't meant to be regular throughways,” Laera reminded him. “Better hurry, then. Challenger is due to make its run in a few minutes.” — — — The jump was almost imperceptible, but there was no mistaking what lay before them when the freighter reverted to realspace. The Challenger popped into existence less than twenty kilometers away from the gaggle of pirate craft, who had at Ooryl's last reading been engaging in refueling operations, possibly for a jump out of the system. “No wonder they were lingering in space for so long,” Asyr muttered as the sensor board beeped with new targets. “Transports, bearing one four eight mark three seven.” “An evacuation?” Ari suggested, her tone uncertain. “Or they simply wanted to move on,” the Gand suggested. “It is never wise for such a group to linger overlong in one place, else they will eventually be found out.” “Or they could've been tipped off,” Asyr growled. “Regardless, we came here to run interference, and that's what we'll do. Might be a good idea to man the guns, a couple of Z'ceptors are heading our way...” Silently, Ooryl and the Sa'ari did as the Bothan suggested and left the cockpit, Ari heading for the portside turret while the Gand took the dorsal mount. As he strapped himself in and powered it up, he thought about how the alien had been remarkably quick on the uptake when it came to using the turret. It was possible that at some point in her life, she had had military or paramilitary training on her homeworld. Wherever that was. “Top turret ready,” he said as Ari reported likewise. Asyr didn't need coaxing. The ship lunged forward at her urging, barreling in on the Uglies as they made their rather cautious approach, possibly due to their inability to readily identify what class of freighter the Challenger was. The pilots paid for their mistake in short order, the two gunners taking out one apiece as the pirate fighters sauntered into their targeting computers' scopes. What happened next could best be described as organized chaos. Undeterred, Asyr shoved the Challenger into the heart of the pirate formation, focusing the forward turbolasers on the nearest patrol craft. The small, seed-shaped vessel had little time to react, its shields buckling after a few solid hits to its forward hull. Her fifth shot lanced the tiny bridge, causing her target to veer lazily out of formation as it belched fire and shed pieces of its outer hull. Pressing home the attack, she sent the ship into a barrel roll as the other three patrol ships and the corvette, whose transponder identified it as the Crimson Allahu, sent a barrage of verdant return fire at their antagonist. Coming out of the maneuver, Asyr banked the freighter in on the transports, old Gallofree models that looked as though they had been assembled from components found in a dozen scrap heaps scattered across the galaxy. The three lumbering barges attempted to veer away, but she sent a pair of proton torpedoes—their last missiles—into each, which impacted against their aft sections as though they had possessed no shields at all. “Fighters on our six,” she coolly informed her gunners as they shot through the rear of the small pirate fleet. Her sensors showed that the haulers had stopped dead in their tracks, their engines unresponsive. As the hot pass ran its course, both of them had been taking potshots at whatever ships passed them by, Ari eliciting a couple of gasps of surprise from Asyr as she bagged two more Uglies at seemingly impossible angles. But now the entire swarm was after them, and it was time to beat a hasty retreat deeper into the system—at least for the moment. The task was easier said than done, as the pirate fighters were close on their heels. “Two coming up from below and to starboard,” Ari warned over the intercom. “Suggest we roll left.” The Bothan reacted without hesitation, canting the ship sideways as it heeled away from Bad Alshir at maximum acceleration. As the portside turret blazed away, Ooryl caught sight of another pair of fighters, Die-wings this time, as they poured laserfire into the Challenger's shields perilously close to his station. The Gand managed to resist the primeval urge to flinch, instead focusing his senses on the incoming craft and taking them out with a single volley apiece. Despite their losses the pirates, angered by how easily their force had been penetrated, were not giving up. “Ooryl wonders how much longer it will be until we are able to jump,” he said as he fired another salvo at the gaggle of Uglies. “Thirty seconds,” she replied. “Keep them off—” The freighter shuddered as another wingpair of Z'ceptors came in on them from behind and below, pummeling their ventral shields with concentrated laserfire. “These pilots are good,” Ari said, her tone serene even as the hiss of her lasers punctuated her words. “I suggest evasive maneuvers while we are still capable of doing so.” “No can do,” came Asyr's strained reply. “Course is locked-in, it's either straight out or not at all!” “Then let us hope our shields last that long,” Ari mused.
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