Topic: The last orders of Captain Kai...

[Rezikai]

The blue hyperspace tunnel surrounding Lieutenant Klavine's A-Wing washed his control panels in a light blue hue. He had been familiar with seeing the blue streaking light since he started piloting. He often thought during these quiet moments about after the civil war was over, how he would return to his mother and explain what he had done and if his father would even stand to look at him or turn on him for being a traitor. Those bothering thoughts were often washed away like mud in a river when he entered hyperspace. Away from the politics of it all, he sat alone in the cockpit of his A-Wing awaiting the tunnel to dissipate and the blackness of space dotted with the stars of a tens of thousands of systems full his view.

Klavine looked at his nav-computer he should be leaving hyperspace in a few minutes. He expected to see the Rebel fleet mopping up the imperial ships that stayed to fight it out and either scrapping them or capturing them. What he had seen that day will never be forgotten. The second huge Death Star exploding over Endor and the word that the Emperor and Vader were both on it when it did meant the Empire's days were numbered. Soon he wouldn't have to worry about the politics of it as he would be on the victors side. Then it didn't matter what his father would think as he would have the proof to show him he chose right.

Suddenly a huge lurch shook Klavine's ship as the blue hyperspace tunnel was torn away and his A-Wing swiveled to starboard. The starfields in front of him spun lateral as his ship seemed to be grabbed pulled. To his horror Klavine saw the stars turning sideways suddenly blocked by the huge arrow shaped vessel in front of him. The imperial vessel aligned with large spherical domes on its sides was instantly recognizable. The imperial ship's tracking beams slowly pulled him ever closer from far below it's underbelly towards its main landing bay. Klavine took a half second to realize what was going on before he said audibly “Stang a dragship! Why is it here?!” He furiously started punching up communications channels to try and reach any Alliance friendlies listening “This is Lt. Klavine of Rebel gold group to any within this transmission I'm being captured by an Imperial Interdictor Cruiser at coordinates 851---” But halfway through his distress call a loud “Zzzzzt” came from the com-channel then a loud hissing wail of interference.

Klavine held his ears to his helmet as loud whine burst though his comm channel jamming his transmission. He gritted his teeth as he reach for his fire control and checked his laser batteries seeing they read over half charged. A millisecond later Klavine  grabbed his control yoke and flipped off his safety as he started to open up his pair of cannon's the A-Wing was equipped with. He pulled the trigger and watched a the cannons start a pair of yellow green blasts at the massive imperial vessel. Then a second later both cannon's reported power failure, no longer able to fire as power banks were drained. Klavine's face reflected the horror coming over his fire control's data report. “Impossible! It read over half!” Klavine yelled to himself.

As the words escaped his mouth the side of the interdictor cruiser fired blue white shots from an ion cannon hitting his small fighters hull shutting down almost all systems. A moment later a female human's voice crackled through his helmet's comm-link as a forced transmission came in. “This is Commander Faraday of the Imperial Naval vessel Slipstream. You will stand down any further aggressive acts and prepare to be seized and taken prisoner.” The woman's voice sounded very annoyed as the transmission broke off. Klavine looked down at his left hip. He still had a side arm a DL-44 to fight with. Less then a second later he realized with his ship disabled he wasn't going to fight off an entire imperial naval crew. He sat back in his grav couch thinking of how silly it had been to think to try it as the small fighter was enveloped by the massive ship's main cargo hangar. The darkness of Klavine's A-wing cabin was soon washed with the glow of imperial scaffolding lighting and spot lights as he and his ship was locked into place. He unbuckled his blaster from his hip and held it in front of him with a regretful look on his face as he checked it's power pack for use. “Guess, this is it...” He mumbled to himself as the sounds of imperial crewman started moving an adjustable catwalk next to his A-wings cockpit.

-

Deep in the bowels of crashed Star Destroyer Kumo Lieutenant Sylvon cursed under her breath. She had been traversing the ship with her pair of stormtrooper escorts for hours before reaching their destination, a large bent framed door. She had been the only one small enough to squeeze through the small opening it had near the bottom and now after a few minutes of work using her comm-link's power supply to re-route into the door's system she was almost able to open it. As she sat cross legged on the deck of the darkened room she wondered how the Captain was faring with the rest of the survivors. It was getting later in the day and she knew she was against the clock. The captain wasn't one to wait for a sole crew officer even her. Sylvon clicked her teeth a moment at the thought and sighed before continuing to tinker with the door controls.

Sylvon was in thought a microphone filtered voice called out from the outside of the door. “How goes it?” Crackled the male voice of the Stormtrooper captain said. Sylvon arched one of her eyebrows as she replied back still working on the door control circuits “Almost done it'd be easier if I had one of those headlamps.”. The other stormtrooper's voice spoke with his skull shaped helmets speakered sound “It wouldn't be able to be slid through.”

Lieutenant Sylvon smirked at that response, knowing full well how terrible the appearance these two were trying to keep up was, knowing it was torn into pieces hours ago. She knew she'd be done playing that game in just a moment as she finished splicing the lines together but halted before touching it to her comm-links power circuit. Instead she quietly took out her blaster and adjusted it's settings. After finishing she called out to the pair of stormtroopers on the other side. “I've got it! It may need help being forced when it slides up. I'll tell you when I activate it!” Slyvon yelled from her side of the door. From outside the door one of the stormtrooper's voices crackled in acknowledgment “Sounds good.” Sylvon took the wire from the door controls in between two fingers hovering it over the comm-link power supply in the palm of the same hand. In her other hand her blaster was held upright. “Activating now!” She yelled.

Sylvon took the wire from the door control with two fingers and pulled it to her palm the crack from the power supply being routed into the controls popped and a millisecond later the large door started to raise but it stuttered half way due to the damage. She saw a pair of thick rubber gloved hands reach under the bottom of the door and start to lift it pulling it up high enough to get to waist level before the creaking of the metal started to screech as the damaged section of the door jammed itself in it's location halfway up.

The screeching halted, before the pair of stormtroopers leaned down to go under the now half open door. As the pair came through and stood upright in the darkened room they tracked back and forth with their headlamps shinning illumination on the area but saw no sign of Lieutenant Sylvon. Just the remnants of her small comm-link on the deck and a wire running from the door. The stormtrooper captain knelt down on one knee investigating the circuit and wiring Sylvon had been tinkering with. A second later the stormtrooper Lieutenant's voice cracked through his helmet. “Where is she?” he said before continuing with “Where in the world are we? This isn't where she was leading us.”

The words made the first kneeling stormtrooper turn his headlamp up and shown light on an area with dead monitors built into the wall and beds lined up alongside. Inert droids were frozen next to the walls and beds as if servicing ghosts laying in them. As the stormtrooper captain turned his headlamp to the side he saw containers of different sizes filling the opposite side of the the room adjacent to the beds. A second later the stormtrooper lieutenant turned his lamp towards the beds that the captain had been focusing on “What the?”. “Look out!” shouted the stormtrooper captain.

The stormtrooper captain shouted as a large arc of blue energy engulfed him sending him forward to the floor. The other stormtrooper immediately opened fire into the darkness of the room. A moment later another arc of blue energy hit him from behind sending him falling forward into one of the containers knocking it over spilling out the packets and supplies inside.

Lieutenant Sylvon crawled into the room from behind the pair of unconscious stormtroopers from under the same door they came in through. She had hidden in the shadows until they looked into the room and realized it wasn't the armory, using the distraction to slip behind them. She pulled the pair of men to the beds and started strapping them down as they moaned in their unconscious state. Sylvon gleamed at herself as she whispered in the darkness. “About time to end this charade.” she mumbled to herself.


-


The sun had set when the work crews finished cleaning out and repairing the tie fighters of Moon squadron that had sank in the sands of Rally Point Alpha. The maintenance techs had rigged up makeshift girders from parts of other craft and supplies found in the shuttles to keep the ties from re-sinking. The total was two ties from Moon squadron and four from Stryfe Squadron. The pilots were five of the six that had their ties being repaired the sixth would take Onyx Lead's slot back to Captain Kai's position.

Lieutenant Vanders sat on a supply crate in the room as he looked over the other five pilots with him. All six of them were sitting on crates or supply containers or in one case standing in front of a darkened holoscreen. They had been ordered to assemble in the Titan dropship's crew prepping area which had now been commandeered by Major Gridon as a command vessel. The other five men were older then he all in their mid to late thirties. He wondered if the other pilots thought him too young and inexperienced to be leading them at this time. Commander Cliner had been killed the day before at Endor so he had yet to even lead his own squadron. Let alone men who didn't know him. The thought sat in Vanders mind until the holo-display lit up in front of the half dozen men and Major Gridon walked into the makeshift area.

The six men shot up from their seats and stood at attention until the Major gave them a wave to sit back down. As they did he turned his back to them and pointed at the screen in front of them.

“Gentlemen, you've been assigned to a search and destroy mission. Recon intelligence has the Rebel ship position here at mark 428.08 on your maps. They were light on fighters as most of their flights were being used on the attack on the Emperors' space station. We expect little to no resistance. Intelligence has the Rebel ship stranded and without power so anti aircraft weapons and standard ship combat tubro lasers should be inoperable. Their may be light ground fire from the survivors but expect it to be light as well. The mission will take place from a high altitude orbit back down into the night side of the planet. The Rebel ship crashed in a semi wooded area near a mountain range as we understand it so their ability to detect attack prior to your engaging will be minimal.”

The Major took a finger and traced a finger over the planets surface up above it and almost a straight drop down into the planets atmosphere on the red circle marking the Rebel ships crash site. Gridon then turned towards the half dozen pilots. “Questions?” He asked. One of the older men in his early to mid forties in the front near the hologram raised a hand. “Yes, Commander Lodd?” Gridon barked. Commander Lodd sat meekly as he asked his question. “Sir, you think a half dozen fighters can finish off the Rebel survivors?” Gridon gave Lodd a half frown as he replied back “The point Commander, isn't to finish them off. The point is to find their position and exact as much damage to them as possible and if their destruction is possible to inflict that amount of necessary damage to them. If after exhausting your laser's power banks on the remnants of the Rebel ship and it has yet to be destroyed or their personnel disbursed or killed then return home for refuel and rearm.”

Commander Lodd simply nodded in agreement at the answer he was given. Lieutenant Vanders thought the plan was very lacking in details and like so many plans Commander Cliner complained about it was more about what the superiors ego could afford to lose rather then the lives the pilots could. Gridon turned from Lodd's direction to face the other five pilots “Any others?” Gridon said giving a slight pause after “Good. Now to your ships. Vander you'll be taking Lead as Banshee One.” The rest are re-designated Banshee for this op. Remember your call signs back to base and Rally point Alpha's callsign is Big Rock.” Gridon finished then turned to the door and walked out of the prepping area heading back into the corridor's of the Titan vessel.

-

On the bridge of the Riptide Captain Barrax overlooked the dismantling of the bridge's displays and supplies while keeping a skeleton crew available for tactical use. The cannibalizing of Riptide had gone much more smoothly then expected except for the slow drain on the fuel from the planets unique gravity. Barrax looked over the few readouts still coming across his tactical display “Estimated time?” He called over to Lieutenant Tarris “He should be arriving back at Endor within the next half hour sir.” Tarris replied from his station. A second later Specialist Dreisha chimed towards the Captain “Sir, the maintenance crews have readied a command station inside one of the larger caves with heavy moisture.” Barrax turned towards her “Good, lets set up the med crews for the wounded there as well.” Dreisha started to relay the information into her console when Tarris spoke up “Sir I'm getting a message coming in on the secure channel.” Barrix turned back to Tarris and nodded “To my display.” A moment later audio and graphs flashed across the small display in front of Barrax, as he sat and reviewed the information a few moments later he turned off his display then turned towards Dreisha “Estimated time for SPEAR to reach target destination?” Dreisha punched up SPEARS information at her console “Any minute now Captain.” Barrix gave a slight smile to his wide calamari mouth “Good, I need to confirm SPEARS information to what I've received. If it checks out we may have more work then we thought we did.” Dreisha gave a puzzled nod and replied back “Yes... sir.” She knew the secured channel wouldn't reach Alliance ships so it had to be someone here on this planet. Her thought was interrupted by Barrix giving her and Tarris new commands “Now lets get ourselves moving and quickly to the caves.”

-

5 kilometers above the planet's surface a small A-Wing fighter flies quietly through the night clouds. Lieutenant Aerrel Tritan readied her recon scans for the star destroyer's crash site. Aerrel was in her early thirties and a veteran pilot of the Alliance. As the scopes started to relay information back to her display it gave her readouts similar to what she expected. The scans came back with a huge gouge torn into the grasslands leading to the sea and the Star Destroyer was half sunken in the water of the coastal inlet. She gave a relieved sigh “Ah, there she lay. Dead as a rock.” She said as she swung the A-wing into a half curving turn to better reconnoiter the site.

The Lieutenant's words were very accurate the scopes shown the planet's moonlit ocean slowly pulling out the tide and a large dark area where a huge arrow headed obstruction now obstructed the ocean currents around it. The display swapped from night vision to a thermal scan and the dark arrow headed Imperial ship started to dot with signs of heat inside of it. Some of them slowly moving others stationary. “Hmmm seems there were a few survivors on her. I wonder if any got... out...” She trailed the sentence in her mind as the thermal scan swapped to a retro thermo active scan showing heat remnants of anything moving recently that had stirred the air with enough heat to augment the environment. Normally these thermal trails were much fainter then the true thermal scans so whoever watched them had to look hard to make them out, however what jumped out to the Lieutenant was something even a novice scan tech could make out. The upper hanger of the Star Destroyer had a large thick defined stream of heat that had recently came from it some of it dotted like personnel other parts huge and bulky like equipment or craft. She thought to herself a moment slightly baffled by the readouts “What in the skies, how many did they get off that rig? How in the Force did...” That's when she saw the heat signature trail of a huge column moving north along the coastline. Like the star destroyers upper hanger it had small dots for human signatures but huge bulky streaks for craft, some shorter to the ground others large and tall nearing twenty-three meters. This surprised Aerrel audibly said “They got tons off of it.” A second later she turned to her consoles and started marking data and murmured “The Riptide needs to know.”

Tritan pulled her fighter back high into the clouds and started north along the coastline. Her mind raced with questions about the imperial ship's crew. Where were they now and why would they mobilize so much of their equipment and craft away from their ship. “Did they think we'd try and finish them off?” She thought to herself. Her ships alarms sounded as her long range scanners indicated a massive collection of life forms in the area north of her along the coastline. Tritan pulled her A-Wing higher into the cloud cover to avoid any ground sentries or surveillance that may detect her. Tritan checked her scopes below and saw a large encampment of temporary shelters and make shift tents. The encampment could hold thousands of survivors. Fires dotted the large collection of shelters like hot embers on a smoldering piece of wood. She moved her A-Wing slightly closer to view but couldn't see much of any craft or land equipment. She knew from her previous scans that some of it had made it off the Star Destroyer. She wondered if they had been moved to a different location “They're up to something.” Tritan said aloud. She decided to make sure in case the imperials were moving it against the Riptide's position. Tritan checked her fuel gauges and she seemed to have plenty to do searching and report back. She calculated the best course would be to continue heading north along the coastline. She swung her A-Wing adjacent from the coast line and further out to sea so she could take better observational scans. Her suspicions paid off as  few minutes later as her scopes lit up with the signals from imperial hardware moving north. Three AT-AT's four AT-ST's four troop transports and at least a dozen or so smaller craft like speeders and light chariots moving troops north. Then the center of the column of material caught her eye.

“Hmmm, protecting the fighters?” Tritan thought as she touched her screen where the scan had showed a concentrated amount of tie fighters and bombers on portable hangar racks moving at the center of the column she observed over twenty of them. The portable hanger racks reminded her of a mini track wheeled siege machine with a rack with a pair of hangars on top for a Tie fighter to park in. The ties on the racks were able to be moved long distances without having to fly or be powered up and with no home ship in the area for them to return to she understood why they would be needed. She tried to assess the situation in her head “But why so far north?” it puzzled her why they had decided to move their collection point so far from their crash site.

Tritan's question almost answered itself as she heard her scopes signal a large concentration of life forms and material to the northwest. She swung her A-Wing down far beyond the column of imperial hardware trudging along the coastline to find small sandy peninsula on the northwestern edge of the coast. Her scopes illuminated the read outs of massive machinery and tech hardware. She recognized most of it as imperial shuttles and spacecraft. The semi circle of equipment curved away from the grasslands and coast more into the sandy peninsula. At the farthest point of the curve inward a large pyramid shaped ship sat away from the rest. She thought it looked as though the imps were setting up for something but she was puzzled as to what. At this point Tritan looked at her fuel gauge and decided she had scouted enough, she turned her A-Wing to the east and started at best possible speed back to the Riptide. She was just breaking away from the peninsula when she noticed a half dozen signatures moving skyward. She banked her A-Wing to get a better read on the signatures and saw a half dozen Tie Fighters moving up from the semi circle of equipment. She gave a frustrated huff “Just what I didn't need tonight.” She thought. Tritant pulled back hard on her control yoke banking the A-Wing easterly and hitting the acceleration. She half expected to be taking fire from the lead Tie by now she checked her scopes and what she saw made her do a double take. She turned herself around in her cockpit to verify what her sensors were saying was correct. The half dozen ties in fact launched for orbit. Far beyond the cloud cover she had so recently used they were moving into orbit and east. She gave a small smirk across her lips realizing the reason for the tie launches were not in response to her fighter “Hmmm seems we're not the only ones interested in the other.”

[Tamer]

Off to share in all the right places. I need to catch up with this and leave better comments. Thanks for writing this for us!

[Rezikai]

Kumo Crashsite

The night fell hard upon the once might Star Destroyer Kumo. Its' once ivory hull burned and twisted. Its decks half sunken into bloody and littered waters. Deep inside the ship few souls remained, fewer still would remain by daybreak. As the tide slipped away from the ship the lower decks slowly emerged from the waves. The moon's pull against the water also lowered the water line of the inlet to a simple wading depth.

The crescent moon's rays fell over the sands of the beach, giving the sands dunes a shimmer to them. When the tide had been pulled out to its furthest point the skittering starts. It comes from the edges of beach where the sand is thin before the shadows are seen roaming across the dunes in small swarms and wading into the shallow tide's water.

The shadows move swiftly over the dunes and even when wading into the water. The shadows moved through the shallow depths to where the lower decks of Kumo were now exposed. The main hangar once flooded now only had a few feet of water near it's base leaving it exposed and open. The dark shadows flowed against the moons light in the water to the main hangar with swift and agile grace. The shadows leaped into the openings and pour into hangar's bays and decks.

-

The nights cool air from the ocean felt good against the back of Captain Kai's neck. He sat around one of the many fires in the middle Kumo's survivor's encampment. Around the fire Corporal Zaym sat to his right and Vishar sat next to his left. He looked down at his leg, noticing that his side arm was still armed and ready. Though he hoped the planet's hosts would keep their curiosity or their blood thirst at bay enough to allow his people to reach relative safety. He and his small entourage were near the rear of the column of survivors coming from their crashed star destroyer. The sandy beach had started to turn into grassland the more north they traversed with the edges of large forests dotting the horizon even before the sun had set allowing the darkness of night to overtake the large line of imperial personnel to make their way. Around the large fire were dozens of technical crew, support officers, troopers and a few stormtroopers checking in from the perimeter to keep updated. All of them covered in sand and dirt most covered in soot or blood  and all of them with a weary look on their faces. Behind them were containers of of different shapes and sizes filled with supplies and tools and anything that could take with them from the Kumo.

Kai looked around at their faces often to remember each of their names. Most of which he had only seen once or twice in the files as they were transferred into Kumo's crew. Now they were more then faces and names on files in a registration. They were the thin veil of protection between each other. Kai gave an inaudible sigh looking beyond the initial pack of people and seeing the squarish outline of a pair of imperial troop transports that some of this group would load onto in a few hours while others would march along side. All of them trying to make it to some imaginary line of safety at the rally point.

He had contemplated using what few shuttles and support craft had managed to make it off Kumo to start a shuttle relay between the column of survivors and the rally point location. But in doing so was asking the rebels for another serving of metal on an already engorged stomach of imperial blood. No, the rally point as an objective is too important to allow the rebels to know about. While this way would be slow and arguably just as dangerous they had a better chance to escape the indigenous life without confrontation. If the rebels found their column and rallying point there would be not need for chances as their fates were surely sealed.

Kai leaned back on his elbow in the grass looking into the fire as he replayed the evenings events in his mind. The ties had nearly all made it to the racks in time a few had to hard land on the sand and took some damage others were dismantled for travel and were being carried in one of the AT-AT's. The rest of the equipment was in tight formation still heading north to Rally Point Alpha with Commander Karamat leading. Kai winced slightly at the thought of hearing Major Gridon's annoying protests when  Karamat give's him the orders he relayed and the good Major finds out he is under her command.

The rest of the Kumo's survivors and wounded would camp here until the early morning and then set out as soon as possible. Kai wished they hadn't need to stop at all but too many wounded made them slow and ineffective. The sentries reported every fifteen minutes to give his people time to defend themselves if needed. But only a few I.T.T's and chariots were left with this slowest section of survivors. He had hoped Lt. Sylvon would have reported back by now but with it being so long since her last check in he had to assume the worst that sent her to her death. Kai frowned slightly at the thought and swallowed it as not to let the others see his expression change. He thought of what he asked of her, sending someone to their death for the survival of the rest of the crew was something expected of imperial officers but still he didn't take the loss of a good officer lightly.

Kai looked up at the stars wondering how the rest of the retreat went. The disaster at Endor over a day ago, an ambush that had backfired and sent the Imperial Navy reeling. As the thoughts crossed his mind he noticed Corporal Zaym lean over and held his helmet close to his ear as incoming information was being relayed. Captain Kai waited a moment until the stormtrooper started to lower his hand from his helmet before Kai turned to question him. “What is it?” Kai said in a light almost casual tone. TK1979 turned towards Kai with is dirty skull faced helmet “Sir, Major Araed is reporting in. She should be coming to check in shortly.” Kai gave an half smile and nodded “Good, at least that's some better news then expected.” Corporal Zaym's expression went unseen behind his stormtrooper helmet but gave a slight nod in reply “Yes sir.” As the stoomtrooper finished the order a pair of naval troopers  were walking over to the group. One was a light skinned female with her large black mushroomed helmet still on while the other was a dark skinned male with a short short cropped haircut without his helm like his companion. Both looked as the other survivors did with dirt and soot covering their uniforms. As they walked around the fire Kai noticed the sacks over their shoulders  as they started handing rations packs out to those that were wanting. Kai took one himself and unwrapped it. The ration itself was a small cylindrical shape in gray wrapping, on the side of it was a small elongated blister of nutrient drink attached to the same wrapper.

Most of the officers and crew who took them opened them and started to munch on them Kai looked at the edible nutrient bar inside. It was a tan in color and extremely dry to the tongue, Kai's mind flashed back to the academy and greedily opening one and taking a huge bite the first time he had saw it after a long day of training and working up his hunger. He spat out the dry brittle pieces that day, a mistake his drill instructor was not going to let him forget for a long time. Today under the night sky and looking at the hungry, worn faces of the survivors of Kumo he chewed it cheerfully to put on the example for his crew to let them see him enjoying possibly  their last meal ever.

The others also joined in eating their rations and taking swigs from drink packs attached to the side of each. Corporal Zaym waved off the female naval trooper that offered him a pack and pointed to his utility belt signaling he still had a partial one in it. Vishra winced as he ate his bar and coughed trying to down it. Kai gave a chuckle at the face that he made and finished the rest of his bar in a large chomp and washed it down with the bland nutrient drink. “Karva, private from Phosmai.” Kai shouted out towards the group of survivors on the other side of the fire. A second later a young private wearing a black jumpsuit covered in dirt stood up from his seated position. He was an olive skinned man medium brown hair slightly longer then most with darker highlights. “Sir!” he said loudly towards Kai who was already motioning him to sit back down “You are nephew to Grand Admiral Sigel aren't you?” The young man sat back done and nodded “Great grand nephew, yes sir.” Kai gave him a nod and continued “I've been to Phosmai and met him before.” Kai said leaving the statement slightly open ended. Karva gave a slightly swallow and gave a slight wince to his reply “Sorry Captain, there's not much there. Aside from the ruins of the old shipyards.” Kai gave a light chuckle “Oh I know, but most of the people of the surface were polite and orderly. Sigel however was still quite full of fire and ice.” Karva gave a smile in reply “Yes, he is. The former Grand Admiral, though I believe my cousin Zaq says he still acts like he was in service.” Kai gave a laugh in reply “Of course he does. He was retired for half a dozen years and still strode around the capital dressed in his full whites and kept offices there. I fear and hope that'll be myself someday.” Karva gave a head tilt in a questioning glance “Sir?” he simply asked. Kai gave a smile and nodded back “Resolute to still be that sane of mind when I hit his age and afraid like he I'll never give up an bit.” Kai started laughing as he finished the sentence as did a few of the others around him including Karva. Kai sat up and his legs and looked up at the sky. I hope we all get a chance to he thought.

A moment later Corporal Zaym's posture motioned to his helm as if he was listening and then shot up at attention pulling his E-11 free from it's holster. “What?” Kai said standing up with him. “Contacts made sir, just under 2 kilometers.” Kai pulled his weapon up as the pair of naval officers previously handing out rations ran over to join them. “Rebels?” Kai said almost knowing it was foolish to think it could be them but hoping for a better answer. Zaym shot a quick reply back without turning his skull faced helmet toward him “No sir, the scouts made contact and there was screaming another biker unit is going to intercept.” Kai slapped Zaym on his shoulder to grab his attention “Visual contact only! Tell them!”. Kai shouted. Seconds later Zaym's voice crackled through his microphone “Sir large multi legged creatures was the contact the biker unit lost one of its number trying to get away.” Kai looked at Zaym “Where were the creatures headed?” he asked Zaym tapped the side of his helmet without a voice relaying the inquiry before turning back “Here sir!” Kai gritted his teeth and cursed. “Fine, Vishra!” “Yes sir!” Vishra yelped standing next to Kai, get to the transports and pull out the crowd suppression packs we should have a pair in each. Then get the transports and on either side of the fire roughly 20 meters away. Make sure they can cross their fire lines.” “Right sir.” Vishra ran over to the transports to start relaying the orders to the drivers. “Corporal, get the crowd away from the fire and hike them near the waters edge it may be their only chance for safety and arm as many of them as you can.” Zaym gave a nod and started shouting orders towards the rest of the survivors moving them away form the fire and west into the darkness of night. A few moments later Vishra returned with a stormtrooper each holding a pair of the crowd suppression backpacks. Kai took one as did the pair of naval troopers and the stormtrooper. Kai turned to Vishra “Get into one of the transports to coordinate firing. With any luck their won't be many of them.” “Yes sir.” Vishra replied and ran towards the transport south of the campfire. The pair of naval troopers and the stormtrooper all slid into the shoulder harness' of the suppression packs. The packs themselves were slightly oval in shape with a pair of exhaust thrusters at the bottom to allow short jump bursts if needed. The left control hand of the pack worked the long grappling arm with a four pronged clamp at the end while the right control handle worked a large taser shaft that had the ability to shoot a larger then normal laser bolt if needed. Each control arm had tubes and wires both feeding to and from them into the backpack itself.

The packs were normally for stormtroopers to use on rioters or violent crowds. Controlling crowds with troopers in the packs helped suppress them though the actual combat effectiveness of the packs were limited due to the few shots the laser on the right taser arm could use before its power pack was drained.

“Will this be better then blasters on the indigenous hostiles sir?” The female trooper asked him “Kai turned towards the pair of them “No, but small arms won't do much against them at all. The P.L.R.s with the tie's are racked up near the center of the column so there's no chance of getting them back this far in time either. Small blasters usually just annoy the Viraxen, but the ITT's firepower should hurt them if we can keep them corralled.” The pair of naval troopers looked at each other with worry as Kai finished initializing his pack and testing the clamp and taser arm “Alright, positions!” He barked towards the others.

-

The flight had been going as planned for Lieutenant Vanders. He was Banshee Lead on this mission. His first as Lead for any squadron Onyx or otherwise. His squad mates on this flight were most of Stryfe and a few Moon squadron remnants. They had launched just under half an hour earlier and were well on their way making their descent from their observation arc. They should be coming up on the Rebel ship within the next few minutes.

Lieutenant Vanders swallowed hard inside his flight helmet. He was possibly the youngest pilot on the Kumo. Now less then a day later of being part of squadron of a fully armed star destroyer he was on a mission to find out if his enemy had the capacity to inflict more damage on his fellow crew and squadron mates.

Vander's thoughts were cut off by the target early warning signal in his Tie's cockpit. He looked over his read outs. It wasn't entirely accurate, the Rebel ship's position was much further up a mountain's slope then originally projected. Vander's blinked as the information came through. He had been on sorties where intelligence on a target had been skewed or in some cases totally wrong. Commander Cliner would often say half the time they went into battle formation the intel they received was probably given by rebel spies it was so bad. Now after the catastrophe at Endor the Lieutenant started to wonder if that joking comment held more weight. Just then a voice crackled through the intercom within Vander's helmet. Lieutenant Lodd's voice came over the speaker “Lead this is Three. We have target identified and marked. Intel really botched this one that thing still has power! Another pilot's voice came over the communicator “There's definitely power inside the lighting is still showing throughout that heap. Order's Lead?” Vander's pondered a half second to remember the name to the voice. It sounded like Banshee 2 was the person asking when Vander's instincts kicked in and he suddenly started speaking into the comm-link. “Banshee's Three, Five and Six swing around twenty degrees to come at them from a different angle. Two and Four fall in formation for an attack run on any remaining ground forces that survived.” Vanders finished as he did the replies came back through his helmet comm-link “Copy Lead” and “Affirmed Lead.” from other pilots of the flight.

-

Inside the Riptide most of the crew had already moved the majority of their equipment to the cave system just outside the Riptides engines in the mountain range they had crashed against. Captain Barrax was walking from the hangar into the night air. The sun had long set and he was supervising the last of the Riptides personnel and equipment that was salvageable off the vessel when a Mon Calamari crewman came walking towards him. The mon-calamari crewman wore the basic beige uniform and raised a hand towards the captain as he approached “Sir SPEAR is transmitting scout information from their run on the enemy position.” Captain Barrax's wide Calamari mouth smiled “Good lets head over to the command center. There should be data equipment to get at least a partial dump from SPEARS transmissions. We'll also see what status was.”

The pair of Mon Calamari walked through the darkness from the Riptides hull. The remaining power inside of it was only being used to illuminate rooms for extracting equipment for the area around the ship until the unloading was finished. With it mostly completed Captain Barrax expected the power to be shut down shortly except for the flight hangar. As the Captain and the Mon Calamari crewman walked into the large oval shaped cave on the side of the mountain many of the maintenance crewmen and officers inside stood at attention before he waved them back to work.

The command center little more then a large cave with communications and weapons stations for the other areas inside and around the mountain filled with the rest of the Riptide's crew. Barrax understood his situation and knew it may take weeks if not longer for a sizable rescue mission to be planned. The Empire took a massive blow at Endor but the Rebellion's ships couldn't just jump to any system with impunity the way the Empire's ships would. As Barrax walked into the center of the command area Commander Shellis gave him an acknowledging nod.

Barrax stopped in front of a clear data screen with a display reading out a small fighter on it's out edge of sensor range moving towards the Riptide's position. He'd hoped a cave would have been found big enough to house the fighters but the maintenance crews hadn't been able to. So they'll have to use the Riptide's hangar for preps and refuels until one is cut for them. As his thoughts finished the display in front of Barrax lit up in in white lettering signifying the data transfer was already taking place. He reviewed the information as it was coming in and put a webbed hand on his large squid shaped head “Hmmm some of it confirms what FOCI sent. But some of it is disturbing. Do we have a channel to SPEAR yet?” he asked looking back at Shellis “Patching through to SPEAR now sir.” A moment later the mon calamari communications officer Tarris spoke up at their console “SPEAR this is POND do you read?”

Over the static the voice of the human female Lieutenant Tritan came through crackled through. “Affirm POND, snoop and scoot came back with lots more recipes to cook our favorite dishes.” Commander Shellis scanned over the display in front of him as he replied back to the Lieutenant's word “Good to hear SPEAR, we'd like a full report on all the ways the stew was stirred.” he said turning a large calamari mouthed smile towards the Captain. Tritan's voice on the intercom crackled through again as he did “It was stirred oddly POND a few spices were snooping around the kettle, the grocery list is inbound.” Shellis nodded in approval at the message “Excellent SPEAR we'll leave a light on for you.”.

Captain Barrax listened to the exchange between his first officer and the young pilot. He was glad to know the information on the imperial positions would help restructure his own defenses. He was glad that SPEAR had confirmed the information that FOCI had relayed to him earlier. Hearing the spices were snooping meant he knew they were launching a probe or reconnaissance flight to check on them soon. Barrax thought to himself a moment and wondered what odd thing SPEAR had found

Suddenly a Mon Calamari technician turned to Commander Shellis. “Sir! Blue Eight reports enemy targets inbound!” Shellis turned towards the other “WHAT!?” A few short seconds later Tarris spoke up from the communications console “I have them,  Enemy fighter signatures confirmed! Bearing 174 at high altitude coming in fast from above.” A second later Shellis turned towards Barrax who nodded approval “It's expected Commander, they're as interested in us as we are them.” “However we should remind them it's not nice to peek at us while we're undressing.” Shellis stood there slightly stunned but remembered the communique Barrax had received from his hidden source earlier. “Ah I see.” Barrax turned towards the communication officer Tarris “Lets get the heavy blasters set up from the mountainside ready! All non essential personnel to get inside cover of the mountain and all remaining umbrella cover to converge on enemy marks!” Tarris was holding the earpiece to the side of his head and shouted a “Yes sir!” as his reply to Barrax. A second or two later Barrax turned to Shellis “Where is Spear re-entering our airspace at?” A quick flash of surprise hit Shellish as he checked the coordinates on the display A second later he replied “SPEAR'S heading will take them right under the enemy signatures!” Barrax gave a quick frown “Patch me through to SPEAR.” Tarris clicked his console a few times and looked up with a defeated look in his large circular eyes “I can't sir, the imps are jammimg!” Barrax stood there with a frown on his face as Shellish turned back towards the Captain with a confused look “Why would they be jamming if they are trying to remain hidden to spy on our position?” After a moment Barrax shook his head and shouted “Those fools! Ready everything! Now!”.

-

High above the Riptide the half dozen Tie fighters broke into two trio's as three of the ties banked towards the mountain's skyline. The remaining ties streamed straight for the Riptides maintenance and supply area that was finishing packing and moving. Banshee Two's voice came in over the comm-link “Not many on the ground Lead.” Lieutenant Vander's caught himself giving a nod inside the cockpit of his fighter even though it was impossible and impractical as no one could see him do it. It was out of instinct more then anything he thought to himself. A half second later he replied back over the communication channel “Give them a strafing and make sure none of that is usable. Also-” “Sir! Enemy targets coming in .39!” Banshee Four's voice yelped over his own on in the channel. Vander's turned and saw dark specs against the blue black background of the night sky far off in the distance “ Break left! Spread formation and swing them towards the mountains!”


Inside the cockpit of his Koensayr BTL-A4 Y-Wing Commander Vorm frantically raced over his controls setting up attack vectors as he watched a spray of blaster fire from the lead Tie tear into the ground crews “Six this is Lead, your closest get after the main group and keep them off of the ground pounders!” Blue Six's Lieutenant Adax's voice crackled back “On it Lead!”.

Lieutenant Adax's Y-Wing was the closest to the Ties and sped in launching his missiles and opening up his dual lasers. The Ties had superior speed as they turned away from the missiles and sped up into a half curl. None of the volleys landed on the incoming Ties the missiles trailed the first two ties before exploding into the sides of the mountain. Vorm banked his Y-wing as he shouted into the com-chanel “Twelve, they're coming towards you cut left and drop the hammer!” Lieutenant Kradam's voice replied back “On it Lead!”

As the trio of Ties turned from their initial strafe Blue Twelve held back his weapons as he dove in from high and right of the trio making sure his shots would be closer and easier to find their marks. As the Ties cleared the edge of the ravine that the Riptide hung over they turned left directly coming into Blue Twelves sights. Lieutenant Kradam couldn't believe his luck as he watched the Ties  in front of him grow closer he opened up his dual lasers and missiles. The pair of missiles hit square on the leading Tie fighter destroying it in a ball of fire. Kradam's lasers hit the edge of one of the other ties sending it smoking as it trailed away from the final imperial fighter.

Inside his cockpit Vander's yelled into his comm-channel “Banshee Two status!” Banshee two reported back quickly over the comm-link “Port panel has major damage it'll go soon, won't be able to hold it!” Vanders cursed and shouted orders into his comm-link as well as he could as his mind raced “Get yourself around the Mountains and back to BIG ROCK!” As he completed the order a spray of laser fire flew just above Vander's cockpit from behind. Vander's gritted his teeth as he corkscrewed down away from the next volley of laser fire.

Lieutenant Adax's spray of laser fire missed the final Tie. He cursed under his breath as he watched it corkscrew away and below him. He tried to turn his Y-Wing to keep up with the roll but the sluggish handling of the Y-Wing wasn't able to compensate for the turn and he had to break away from the roll early. A moment later Vorm's voice broke over his comm-link as he pulled out of the roll “Six pull back! He's too quick for you that close to the deck!” Adax started to reset is position as he replied back to Blue Lead “Moving to regroup with you Le-aaaah...”

Vorm turned behind in his cockpit to see Blue Six explode into a ball of fire as three more Ties poured laser volleys down from above. He turned back around in the cockpit and pulled up on his control yoke testing the limits of the Y-Wing's agility.

Vander's shouted into over the comm-channel “Cut left Squad! Ready for another run!” As he said that Banshee Three, Lieutenant Lodd's voice came over the channel “Negative Lead, we have multiple enemy targets chasing us from the rear.” Vanders gritted his teeth but he didn't have time to argue. Instead he cut his Tie in a hard twisting semi circle and headed back towards Lodd and the other original trio of Tie fighters.

Vorm finished his turn and brought his sights on the new trio of targets that had destroyed Blue Six. Vorm sped down from above the group as he saw the last unharmed Tie from the original trio speeding under the three new targets back towards Riptide. He barked into the comm channel “Blue Twelve keep the group in front of you!” Replying was Lieutenant Draxan in Blue Eight “Trying Lead, they're much faster then us!” Vorm gave an angry look at his monitors as he barked back “Eleven break far right keep raining on them! Herd them back left!” Lieutenant Lisson replied back over the comm channel “On it Lead!” Vorm continued as his reflexes were on edge “Twelve come back around on me and be ready to open up on my order!” Kradam shouted back “Following you Lead!”

The pair of Y-Wings Commander Vorm lead hung a far arcing left half circle from high above the descending Ties who were avoiding the continuous blasts from Blue Eleven's onslaught.

The three Ties pulled a half circle breaking up and left to stay away from volleys from behind and their right. They pulled up as Blue Twelve had just fell in formation with Commander Vorm and were now coming straight at each other. Vorm shouted into his comm at Kradam “Now Twelve! Open up!”

The pair of Y-Wings unleashed their dual blasters and missiles into the trio of Ties. The left Tie's solar panel exploded from the volley of Vorm's fighter. It spun down into the ground and exploded. The center Tie took both of Lt. Kradam's missiles and exploded in a fireball. The third Tie fighter broke for high altitude in a very steep climb before veering back towards the Riptide.

Vanders unleashed a volley of laser blasts across the top of Riptide's hull then spun around to see Banshee Three come out of the explosions behind him. He shouted into his helmet comm-link “Three you've got enemy fighters all over your tail!” Banshee Three Lt. Lodd's terrified voice came back through the comm channel “They got Five and Six! Bottled us into a roll!” Vander's took a half second and shouted back “Break hard left for the Mountain tops!” Lodd turned his Tie fighter hard and fast towards the left making for the mountains just past the great ravine Riptide was perched on. Two of the Y-Wings continued after him while two others following behind continued toward Vanders opening up their lasers.

Vanders grunted as he felt the gravity force pull at him as he did a fast and tight Talon roll corkscrewing around the Y-Wings laser blasts and then broke a hard back down the mountain side below Riptide into the tree tops. The pair of Y-Wings cut hard right to follow him as best they could. Vanders raced his Tie fighter down the mountain buzzing the tree tops so close he could hear the tops snapping against his solar panels. He saw the blasts from behind him continue to hit trees and fly past him as his two pursuers fired relentlessly after. During the chase Vanders flew over a large drop as the mountain's base dipped drastically. Cutting his engines to near nil as he descended deep into the now dipping tree line realizing he had his chance. His engines near cut he was able to do a quick turn and accelerated back around and up the tree tops but below the sight of the Y-Wings who continued sending bolts of laser fire over the tree tops giving him a good measure of where they would appear when he was close enough.

As the Y-Wings came closer to the dip Vanders sped up and as the shadows of the tree line became the Y-Wing silhouette he lined his lasers with the Y-Wings position and opened up sending laser blasts through the underbelly of the Y-wings shields and then as the blasts traced across the rebel fighters fuselage it tore through the shields and blew apart one of it's large engine housings that gave the Y-Wing it's name. The rebel fighter's engine exploded and the fighter fell deep into the tree line exploding.

The Y-Wings companion broke as hard as it could to the up and right. Away from the incoming fire. But by then Lt. Vanders was well on his way back up the tree line to the Riptide. 

Lieutenant Lisson broke in over the comm channel “Lead this is Eleven, Eight got smoked hard and went down in the trees. Eyeball is on the way back to Riptide!” Vorm replied back quickly “This one's trying to lose us in the mountain peaks! Twelve Break off and help Eleven!” Kradam's voice came over the channel in reply “Moving out Lead! On my way Lisson!”

Lieutenant Kradam banked his Y-Wing from the mountains peaks and sped back down it towards the Riptide. From the darkened tree tops he could make out the pair of solar panel shaped shadows of the Tie fighter against the moonlight. Kradam opened up his laser blasts from half way up the mountain but the Tie Pilot swerved around them. “This guy is good Lead!” Kradam shouted into the channel.

Just then from the mountain side large blasts of laser fire erupted from a handful of caves towards the tree tops at the Tie Fighter. The Tie pulled up away from its strafe run on Riptide high into the air again. Kradam gave a half smile as he realized the ground batteries were up and assisting as well. “He's going high!” Kradam shouted.

Then a pair of shots came from high across the sky towards the Tie fighter hitting it in the solar panel rocking it. Lieutenant Triton in her A-Wing had arrived to help the rebel defenders. Over the Mon Calamari pilot's headsets they heard her human voice break through. “Blue Lead this is SPEAR offering assistance!” Vorm gave a quick smile as he replied “Much appreciated SPEAR, keep them away from the POND!” Vorm replied as he stalked the remaining Tie through the mountain peaks above the Riptide. He followed until it pulled up over the peak and sped down the mountain side. Racing back towards towards Riptide. Vorm's voice broke through on the comm channel “These guys are relentless! Blue Squad and SPEAR my target it heading for Riptide!” Vorm banked his sluggish Y-Wing back down the mountain and pull himself level high to get a gauge on the Tie fighter's position. Triton's voice came back over the channel “On it Blue Lead!” Then Lisson's “We're waiting on him Lead!”

As the Tie fighter sped towards the Riptide the handful of ground batteries set up by crews on the mountain side lit up the night sky. They traced the fast moving fighter as best they could until finally it dove and strafed one of the ground batteries in what looked like frustration before pulling up for altitude. Vorm broke through the headsets of the remaining rebel fighters “He's going sky ward again SPEAR can you intercept!?” “Easily Lead!” Triton said back.

Just as Lieutenant Triton's A-Wing banked to start moving to intercept the remaining Tie fighter a blast of laser fire hit her A-Wing's shields disabling them. She gritted her teeth as she spoke to herself “What in the!?” Then Lisson's voice came over the channel “That wounded Eyeball came back for more!?” Triton winced and barked into the channel “He's mine Blue Squad! The last one I'll leave for you!” Lisson gave a quick reply “On it SPEAR!”

Lieutenant Vanders knew his damaged solar panel was too far gone to allow a safe return back to base. He wanted to inflict as much damage as he could back at the rebels for what they had done to his squadron this night, for Commander Cliner at Endor, for everything he knew they had done. The A-Wing's shields held against his initial barrage but he had no time nor ability to reposition his Tie for another shot. He turned towards the tree line again but this time was wounded and slower and instead of a sluggish Y-Wing in pursuit a fast A-Wing was chasing after him blasting at him from behind. He realized he wouldn't have a chance head on against his new type of adversary. No he needed to be cunning.

Vanders flew his wounded Tie down into the tree line into the same dip in the trees as before and slowly spun around to await the A-Wing, but the overshooting laser bolts never came to give him a position on where his enemy would emerge from the treeline. Vanders panicked, his ploy was found out he punched the accelerator to speed back up the dip in the trees. As he expected his A-Wing enemy to be raining death from above any second. But instead as he cleared the edge of the dip's tree line expecting to see the mountain range and Riptide's crash site again was horridly greeted by the rivets to an A-Wings fuselage as the A-Wing Pilot had accelerated as they flew close to the tree line dip.

Vanders banked his Tie fighter at the last mili-second smashing his already wounded solar panel into the fuselage underbelly of the A-Wing sending both fighters spinning away in the night like marbles smacking each other and zooming away at different angles.

Vorm's voice broke over the comm channel again “He's moving around to try the mountains again! Twelve come at him from above!” Kradam gave a quick response “ Already ahead of you Lead, sending love letters now!”

Lieutenant Kradam's Y-Wing had stayed high on the mountain range to give support and now found himself the main attraction in this aerial show of combat. He shot a pair of missiles from high on the mountain side above Riptide downward as the final remaining Tie again tried to run for the mountain peaks to escape death. The Tie's pilot either never saw the Y-Wings missiles or didn't register what they were in time as the pair of missiles bulls eyed the Tie's cockpit blowing the entire fighter to bits instantly in a ball of flaming debris. “Good work Twelve! Eleven what happened to SPEAR?” Lisson's voice broke in “Unknown sir! She went skipping after the wounded Tie and now I don't show either on the scopes.” Vorm gave a hard frown and chattered back “Lets get back to base and repaired we'll have recov-teams sent for Eight and SPEAR if they were able to eject and make it to the deck.” A second later Lisson's voice came back through the channel “I hate leaving them out there sir.” Vorm winced “As do I Eleven, but Riptide needs a stable umbrella cover should the Imps try this again. Shellis will make sure to send teams for our people.”.

In the command center Captain Barrax looked over the displays as the combat over head ceased “Status report!” He barked. Shellis turned towards him replying “All enemy targets are destroyed or bugged out Captain. We have possible pilot's on the deck in need of pick up.” Barrax gave a slight nod as he replied “Get to them Commander. Our fighters defended us admirably this night.” Shellish nodded and started sending orders through the headset he held to his face.

[Tamer]

Nice. Time to go share.

[Rezikai]

- Kumo suvivors camp...


The sounds of scared gasps and angered voices shouting became the new background noise in the darkness behind Captain Vare Kai, of ISD Kumo. His breathing quickened as his eyes flashed back and forth from side to side into the darkness trying to make out any shadows moving against the dark blue and black star filled horizon. To his left was one of the rectangle shaped troop transports turning its guns in the same direction as Kai's vision. Slightly behind the transport was a stormtrooper and the female naval trooper both donning the crowd control packs that Kai himself wore. To Kai's right was the large campfire and the other naval trooper also wearing a control backpack. Beyond the trooper was the dark rectangle of the other troop transport where Vishra was inside scanning its cannons back and forth waiting for a target to come from the darkness.

Behind the small line of defense the four of them and two vehicles created was a small crowd of survivors being marched back away from the edge of the grassland coastline into the edge of the sandy ocean surf. Another small picket line of technicians and troopers took kneeling positions with blaster rifles and carbines to try and offer assistance to Kai's position more near the edge of the sand.

Kai tried to take deep breaths to control his nervousness. He looked back and forth trying to catch the slightest of movement against the darkened star speckled horizon as a small cloud front had shuffled into the area peppering the moonlight against the grasslands horizon.

Kai broke the nervous silence with instruction “There bodies and legs are extremely tough, go for the eyes on the front of the cephalothorax!” Their wasn't a reply from either of the troopers within shouting distance as each seemed staring into the darkness intensely. Each person of the group were ten meters away on either side. “There!” The dark skinned naval trooper to Kai's right yelped and pointed at a large round shadow barely visible against the darkness. “Fire!” Kai barked and the transport opened up with its dual canon's on top of its main body and the pair of single canon's in its forward pilot compartment. A loud ear piercing shriek cried out through the darkness from the shadow as it rolled back and forth showing it's long segmented legs flailing in moonlight for a few seconds.

Kai snapped himself out of the trance of watching the transport attacking the beast and turned to the left looking back to the north at the naval trooper and stormtrooper “Be ready it may be a-” Suddenly a large round bulbous body of a Viraxen leapt from the grassland shadows high into the air spreading its large segmented legs in the air and coming down on top of the other troop transport and crushing much of the middle main compartment as it tore into the durasteel with its sharp ends to its segmented legs. “There! Attack!” Kai yelled as he rushed towards the other transport. The female naval trooper and the stormtrooper also wearing their packs ignited their jump jets and quickly covered the ground between them and the large arachnid tearing into the transport's hull. Kai watched as the dark huge beast attached itself to the transports main compartment and started to peel its durasteel metal hull back like the skin of a fruit. The pair of imperials flew over to the transport towards the three meter wide diameter body of the Viraxen assaulting the imperial vehicle. As they came close the naval trooper powered up her taser shaft and shoved it hard into the nearest long segmented leg tearing into the transports hull. The beast shrieked in pain flinging its leg into the human woman and sent her reeling hard into the darkness. The stormtrooper took a second quick jump with his jets dodging a low swinging attack of the Viraxen rear legs. The trooper came down over top the arachnid's body and landed on its large round abdomen. Using the clamp claw arm of the riot pack the trooper grabbed one of the Viraxen's segmented legs shoving into the hull of the transport pulling it back out forcing the arachnid to release its grip.

Kai and the other naval trooper arrived just as the Viraxen swung itself off the transport and shuffled on its other legs into the grass. Kai and the naval trooper each clamped a leg and and started shocking the beasts body and head with their taser shafts. The arachnid rocked back and forth making it hard for Kai and the others to hold their grasping claws on it. Kai gave the beasts head a hard shock into the eye area trying to blind the arachnid as it shrieked out in pain and flailed in a hard jerk sending Kai and the naval trooper backwards toward the ground. The viraxen shook and turned just in time to have the transport's pilot compartment canon open up at point blank range into it's head. The stormtrooper jetted away from the beast towards Kai's landing place and saw the beast take hit after hit and refuse to fall as the laser blasts burned into its body. Kai and the male naval trooper rose and ran back towards the rear of the beast and shoved their taser shafts into the beasts rear abdomen. Finally the beast's movements slowed as its legs grew limp and it fell to one side against the shredded side of the transport it flung out its segmented legs trying to strike against the remaining attackers.

Kai and the others kept a safe distance and turned around towards the original Viraxen that attacked the first troop transport to see the other arachnid finally fall against the barrage of the dual canon and the port pilot gun. The starboard canon having been ripped from the pilot compartment. Kai's mind raced and turned back toward the others and scanned the area, the blood pumping through his ears as the adrenaline rushed through his body. “There's a third! Look for it!” He shouted out towards the others. As the words sat a moment the large arachnid shot from the grasslands shadows darting past the large campfire towards the survivors near the water's edge. “There!” Kai shouted towards the Viraxen as it arrived close to the picket line the few technicians and troopers opened up with their blasters. The Viraxen shrugged off the blasts and gave a blood curdling scream as it opened its wide fanged mouth and rose its front pair of segmented legs at the prey in front of it.

Vishra's transport opened up on the back of the Viraxen near the survivors as it sped towards it. “Kill it! Now!” Kai shouted, as he did the stormtrooper with the riot pack jump jetted to the backside of the arachnid to repeat the same move he had used against the previous beast. But the Viraxen turned quickly to get away from the transport's barrage and flung a long segmented leg up at the stormtrooper and impaled the trooper sticking its sharp segmented leg deep into the trooper through his riot pack up to the Viraxen's metatarsus. The riot pack's jets cut from the damage and the trooper's body went limp as the blood from the wound gushed down the dirty white armor. The viraxen turned and scissored another of its legs tarsus into the body of the impaled trooper bisecting it and flinging the parts away.

Vishra's transport finally arrived next to the beast and opened up on the arachnid monster continuing to fire landing hits but the beast took each blast keeping its attention turned from the survivors. Kai and the naval trooper jetted over towards fight overshooting the viraxen and landing between it and the survivors as the few with working blasters trying to continue to shoot at the beast. Kai tasered the back of the beasts abdomen and jumped back as the viraxen tried to scissor him as it had down the stormtrooper. It turned towards Kai and looked at him with its large single blood red eye with an onyx pupil. Kai was taken aback a moment “A royal...?” He muttered as the viraxen leapt towards him but as it did Kai used the claw to deflect one of the arachnid's tarsus claw as it tried to stab at him in a rage. The dark skinned naval trooper flew high above the beast garnering the viraxen's attention and it raised its front pair of segmented legs to try and impale him as it had done the stormtrooper but the naval trooper kept in the air and slowly flew away from the crowd and the beast followed until it stopped suddenly as the grass and  beach under the beasts legs started to become mushy from the edge of the tide wetting it. The viraxen gave a loud scream of frustration at the naval trooper as his jump jets cut off suddenly as their thrusters couldn't sustain the long aerial maneuver and he fell into the shallow water. The beast gave a loud audible hiss and turned back towards the crowd of survivors all the while taking blaster hits from TK1979 and others from the picket line that had rushed over to join the fray.

Vishra's transport arrived on scene just as the viraxen turned back and caught blasts from the transports dual cannon. Kai rushed towards the side of the transport and opened a compartment on it's side pulling out a cylindrical object and heaving it at the beast. Kai threw a thermal detonator that exploded just as it reach the beasts legs. The force of the blast blew Kai and the nearest picket defenders off their feet and lifted the transport a few feet in the air before it came down into the sand from the explosion. The arachnid shuddered loosing many of its legs and a loosing a sizable chunk of its abdomen and fell into the sand.

Kai shook his head as he stood up and shed his riot pack. He looked over at the survivors and nodded to them as he and a few of the technicians and troops with blasters walked closer to the viraxen in it's death throws. It was missing the entire left side of it's segmented legs and a large half circle blown away from its large abdomen. The arachnid hissed and slowly stopped moving as its life drained away. Kai looked at the beast's cephalothorax where its singular large red eye was now half closed. Kai shook his head slightly in thought.

Kai turned towards the others “Find our people!” he said pointing up the beach where the female naval trooper was knocked away early in the battle. The other dark skinned naval trooper had also shed his riot backpack as he trudged from the water completely soaked from his dunk in the coast. Kai let himself take some deep breathes holding a scowl over his face. TK1979 corporal Zaym marched up to Kai “No other units reporting contacts sir.” He said with the military sharpness that was instinctual to him when in combat. Kai nodded and turned toward the near destroyed troop transport and gave a long sigh. “It's had it, I'm sure. Corporal get the pilots out and have them fall in with the rest of us, we leave the area within three minutes and we pack Vishra's transport with every last person we can. The equipment will need to be left.” TK1979 nodded and held his hand to his helm giving orders silently under his helmet.

A few moments later the dark skinned naval trooper soaked from the ocean reported that the other trooper was found knocked unconscious in the sand. “Good, get her back here and on the transport.” Kai said relieved. Within the next few minutes the only pilot to survive the beaten and shredded vehicle hopped on Vishra's transport, as well a nearly two dozen other survivors that could fit on the large rectangle shaped vehicle.

TK1979 came over to Kai who had been kneeling over looking at the remains of the slain stormtrooper. “Sir, we're ready to move, over half will need to march alongside the transport however.”. Kai nodded at the statement “We'll all march, we'll take shifts as to give each group a rest every few hours. With luck this was a scouting party and we won't encounter more tonight”. Coropal Zaym just gave a slight nod unsure of how the captain would know that and held up a hand to the side of his helmet relaying the captain's instructions.

The remaining transport got underway packed with as many survivor's from Kumo it could while it crawled in speed alongside the rest of the survivors. Vishra was greeted by the Captain again as he sat in the pilot compartment with him. “Good to see you made it fine sir.” Vishra said to which Kai gave a frown but turned it into a neutral expression as he replied “Oh this is just the start Vishra, we'll have more then these to deal with by this time tomorrow night at the rally point”. Vishra gave a slight nod and a half smile unsure of what the captain was talking about but knew it was knowledge he'd probably not like knowing to begin with.

Over the next several hours the remainder of the rear column followed the last troop carrier until the start of daybreak. It was then Kai ordered a temporary halt for relief and food. He seemed relieved the morning light was coming as the blues and purples were being slowly transitioned into early morning light. Vishra remembered something the captain had said during the night's trek after the attack that the beasts don't like the sunlight so it would provide a small form of resistance against any curious Viraxen from approaching them. Vishra hoped he was right.

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Rally Point Alpha north western peninsula...

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Inside the hangar of the Imperial Titan dropship Major Gridon set up his command center. Usually the Titan housed four AT-AT's it could drop planet side for operations in it's massive hangar. None of the four were in the drop ship at the time of the Kumo's crash as the Titan was used to break free from the Rebel Ship attached to the star destroyer sending boarding parties over.

Now in the middle of the hangar a pair of portable holo-tables were set up  surrounded by clear scanning displays and technicians manning sensor terminals. Gridon was still wearing his olive drab uniform as he held his hands behind his back when the first reports from the strike on the Rebel vessel came in. A pair of stormtroopers armed and standing in the command center were positioned in front of the Titan's crew entrance near the bottom of the massive hangar to stop anyone trying to enter the makeshift command center during the operation. Aside from the group of technicians Captain Ryvil stood next to one of the holo-tables wearing his black officers jumpsuit reading the data as it was relayed.

Major Gridon had deployed his only pair of working probe droids at the extreme sensor ranges of the crashed rebel vessel. The droids were not adapting well to the environment for some odd reason and they were only bringing in bit and pieces of the battle as it took place far off in the distance of their visual scanners.

After the destruction of the Lieutenant Lodd's final Tie Fighter Gridon seemed gritted his teeth in frustration. ”If only that fool Kai would have allowed me to use the fighter craft instead of hoarding it. We would have overwhelmed them by now“. One of the ground technicians looked over from the clear display and nodded “ Yes sir.”. Gridon ignored the man's reply and continued his diatribe “But instead he took the fighters for himself for his own glorious hike along the coastline afraid if he's attacked by the rebels so he has to have them by his side at all times.” The rest of the ground crew said nothing to the remainder of Gridon's statement and the air sat uneasy a moment before another technician looked up from his console towards the Major “Sir, Banshee Two is limping home it should be able to make it if his solar panel holds”. Gridon gave no change to his expression nor looked in the technician's direction and replied “Track it until it gets close enough for a landing and if we need we'll set up an open area for a controlled crash.” “Yes sir.” the tech replied clicking on his console relaying the order.

A moments later the first tech turned towards the Major relaying information “Major, the head of Captain Kai's column has reach the our outer perimeter.” The technician's words sat in the air a moment as Gridon gave a half frown “... feh.” was the only reply the Major gave. The sound wasn't uncommon to the officers in Gridon's command, they knew it was the sound of unpleasantness about to happen. Usually when he was about to argue with the captain over a decision or when he takes a loss on something he expected to succeed at. Today would be both.

At the southern edge of the north western peninsula the first troops and vehicles from Kumo's column reach the peninsula's edge where the coast turned into a large sand bar that stretched out well beyond the horizon. In the lead was the massive imposing figure of an all terrain armored transport dubbed an AT-AT. Commander Karamat stood at the command station of the lead AT-AT. Her large green helmet hiding her jet black hair. She donned combat armor as most officers in the field would. Karamat balanced herself as she felt the floor of the AT-AT's rock slightly as the terrain started to change. The change of landscape started to coincide with the breaking light over the horizon as the evening darkness was shedding and slowly the warm colors of the planet's sun start to burn away the darkness of the star filled night's sky.

As the large lumbering vehicle crossed over the beaches rocky edge into the sand Karamat narrowed her green eyes as she saw the dawn start over the horizon. She let the thought that had been at the back of her mind this entire nights trek come to the front again, that the small peninsula was an odd place for a rally point so far from the crash. But if the Captain thought it the best place for survival she wasn't going to argue it, yet. “Not yet at any rate.” she murmured to herself watching the morning break across the peninsula's sand. One of the white helmeted At-At pilots leaned to one side as his voice broke through his helm speaker “Sir?” Asking if Karamat had said something intended for them.

Karamat gave no change in her cool expression as she replied “Nothing Sergeant, continue into Major Gridon's half circle of foolishness ahead.” The At-At driver leaned back upright as his reply came back through his helmet “Yes sir.” The huge lumbering vehicles trudged into Rally Point Alpha's semi-circle. Behind the three AT-AT's was a cluster of air speeders, light chariots and Troop Transports with various troops and personnel on foot carrying supplies.

Major Gridon cursed under his breath as he looked at the display screen showing the first part of the column entering in the semi-circle his shuttles and craft had created. One of the technicians gave an inaudible gulp as he looked up from his screen “Orders Major?”. Gridon gave a huff and replied “Tell Kai to meet me outside in the center of this forsaken spot he decided to declare our sanctuary. I want an audience to see his face when he learns what we've accomplished.” Gridon barked then as he turned to leave he shouted “Troopers, with me!”.

As the Major finished his words he stepped out of the hangar through the crew doors of the Titan dropship. The pair of stormtroopers quickly followed behind him along with Captain Ryvil. The technician on the display console watched him leave as he started to speak in a meak tone “Ummmm I think it's Commander Kara...” But before the words were out Gridon's entourage were out the door. The four other technicians working the command center's terminals and displays looked over at the fifth waiting for him to finish the sentence. Instead the technician just gave a cough and returned back to his console gulping again slightly.

Outside the Titan vehicle Major Gridon stepped quickly as the AT-AT slowly lowered itself by bending it's large front pair of legs at the knees and then lowered it's rear end to allow the main loading doors on the sides to be opened letting out survivors of the Kumo as well as supplies and equipment.

Gridon raised a hand to the blinding searchlights on the side of the AT-AT as it lit up the area directly in front of it. The red glow of the cockpit still showed the pair of pilot's silhouettes inside as Gridon walked past the head of the vehicle. He stopped in front of the disembarking troopers and technicians pulling out supplies and folded his arms across his chest expecting to see Captain Kai emerging soon. The pause gave Captian Ryvil and the pair of stormtroopers a chance to take their positions to the sides and behind him.

After a few minutes the heavy equipment being removed from the AT-AT's main compartments Gridon saw the AT-AT's commander walking down the loading ramp taking off her large green helmet revealing the brownish red hair of Commander Karamat. Gridon's body language changed as he was slightly surprised “What is this!?” he demanded. Commander Karamat tilted her head to one side a moment and gave the faintest of polite smiles before as she replied. “This, Major. Is the first bit of salvageable supplies and equipment from the Kumo.” Gridon gave a frown and elevated his voice speaking harshly “Don't toy with me Vareese. Where is Kai?” Gridon replied starting to grit his teeth. Commander Karamat's polite smile disappeared and her dagger filled stare shot back at him as she replied bluntly. ”He's still with the mass of survivors trekking here along the coast. You wouldn't have expected him to leave his crew just because he could? Did you Major?” Karamat said with a ambiguous tone. Gridon pulled his head to one side but kept his eyes that were now partially closed on Karamat “That-. Is old history Commander, not applying to our situation this night.” Karamat shot back a cold expression as she replied “While historical yes, it always applies Major. For nothing but to remember the lessons learned from previous experience. In learning from those hard lessons Captain Kai has put me in charge of all forces here while you're to remain under my command.”

The statement came and Gridon didn't seem to notice it at first and replied with a “What?” As a disgusted look started to fall over Gridon's face as Karamat's words sank in. Commander Karamat didn't wait for Gridon's assured conflicted reply and instead pointed towards the black jumpsuit wearing officer behind him “Captain Ryvil! You're now under my command along with all fighter and flight crew's from Kumo from this moment forward.” Gridon reach out and grabbed Karamat's arm pulling her down as he shouted at her. “You don't EVER undermine me! Do you UNDERSTAND!?”.

Commander Karamat winced a moment and looked up at the large man holding her arm down and gave him a cold smile. The next second the sounds of falling crates of materials and unlocking safeties and powerbanks being loaded into blasters made Gridon look up and take notice.

Hearing the noise Gridon looked up from Vareese while still holding the Commander's arm and saw five naval troopers coming down the loading ramp holding blasters on the him and his stormtrooper escort. A pair of technicians that were unloading the equipment behind the stormtroopers doing so as well. As was several partially armored stormtroopers that had been helping the technicians unload their supplies.

Gridon looked back down at Karamat still holding her and screamed “You treasonous slut!”

Afer Major Gridon's outburst one of the naval troopers on the loading ramp shouted at the Major in a respectful but serious and authoritative tone. “You have to three seconds to release her or you and every man here in your command and even you Ryvil are turned to smoldering corpses to be put in the ocean and listed as KIA in the crash. Captain Kai's orders.” Said the veteran voice of Sergeant Atter.

Captain Ryvil slowly raised his hands. As did the pair of stormtroopers escorting Gridon.

Major Gridon gave a sneer and released Karamat who raised back up rubbing her arm. She then unhooked her blaster and pointed it at Gridon who stepped back with an angry look. Karamat never said a word and fired her weapon into Gridon. Large blue arcs of power enveloped Gridon throwing him through the air almost a meter. His unconscious body landed between his stormtrooper escorts with their hands still raised. Karamat let the slightest expression of anger fill her words “Put him in a shuttle and seal it. He gets to cool down a while, you two can escort him in there as well.” She said pointing at the stormtroopers who were now handing over their blasters to the naval troopers. Karamat gave a wince and shouted at the black clad officer now far behind Gridon's slumbering body. “RYVIL! Front and center!”

Captain Ryvil snapped forward between the pair of stormtroopers and over Major Gridon's still breathing body. “Yes Ma'am.” he said with some anxiety in his tone. Karamat correctly him “Sir.” Ryvil nodded “Yes, sir.” Karamat gave no change to her expression and continued “Get your report ready, I want to know why half a dozen Ties never made it to Captain Kai. He was quite displeased when he learned this and will be more displeased when he learns they aren't here now.” Captain Ryvil swallowed hard. He felt Karamat's eyes over him and he knew the power she wielded with just a word or twitch of a finger his thirty one years in existence would end instantly. “Of course sir.” Karamat's facial expression didn't change but the tone in her voice elevated to an annoyed anger “Of course!? Of course stanging of course! We have new priorities for defense which makes any Hutt runs your doing on the Rebels all secondary.”

Captain Ryvil nodded and gestured back towards the towards the Titan dropship and started to march back towards it with Karamat following almost of top of him. Sergeant Atter's naval troops moved Major Gridon's sleeping body and his pair of stormtroopers more inward of the semi-circle of ships where they sealed them three inside a Sentinel troop shuttle.

During the small trek to the shuttle Gridon regained consciousness and tried to protest but was met by Atter giving him a toothy grin and a few curses before they slammed the doors shut and Atter put a pair of his naval troopers on guard duty. “If he gets out don't feel you have to restrain yourselves, burn'em. Captain's orders.” Atter said to the pair of men now guarding the shuttles doors. After the orders Atter started marching back across the semi-circle of spacecraft to Commander Karamat's position in the dropship, cursing his old legs out loud to himself the entire way.

[Tamer]

Off to share the new chapter.

[Rezikai]

******Just a heads up from the author, some stuff may not be totally kid friendly in the chapter if you're reading it aloud. But nothing brutal mostly talk.******
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Inside the Kumo crash...

Lieutenant Sylvon sat in a small chair holding her head up by propping her arm against a display screen on a table in front of her. She was starting to drift asleep when she heard the moans of one of her captives as he started to stir awake. Sylvon smiled and stood up standing a little over a meter from a pair of medical beds containing the two other men. The room was cast in total darkness except for the light of one of the headlamps laying on the ground that until some hours ago was attached to the helm of one of the sleeping men.

“Wha... where” came the groggy groan of the older of the two men. A moment or two of dead silence filled the air before Sylvon spoke up “Inside Kumo of course, you must have fallen and hit your head”.


The man who awoke was an older man in his late forties comparatively to his captured companion who was also using stormtrooper armor. The other man was still unconscious on the parallel medical bed. He was a much younger man possibly into his early twenties if that. After a moment of silence following Sylvan's reply to his question the man started to come to his senses “What? No.. why can't I move, where am I?”. Sylvon continued in a formal tone replying to the man “I told you that already. You can't move because you're strapped in one of the medical beds in the port mid-forward sickbay. But you should have known that”. Sylvon added a slightly gleeful upturn in her voice as she finished her statement. The man struggled against his restraining straps but to no avail. The straps were used for restraining the most powerful of patients and easily handled his attempts at stretching them to escape. After a few moments of attempting to escape from the restraints he gave up and looked at Sylvon, who was little more then a silhouette of legs in front of the light thrown by one of the headlamps laying on the floor. Angrily the older man started to shout “What did you do to us?!”. Sylvon gave no real emotion in her reply “Why nothing yet. Aside from stripping both of you to make sure no little surprises like vibro-blades were concealed on you or in your nether regions.”

The sounds of the two talking must have alerted the senses of the other sleeping man. The younger man stirred as his groggy voice mumbled “Ugh... my head.” Sylvon let her voice raise in an appreciative tone as she noticed the second younger man was waking “Ah, now that everyone is awake we can start getting down to business.” The younger man clenched his eyes shut as he muttered on “Wh-Where... am I?” Sylvon gave a slight huff through her nostrils and replied to the younger man in a more annoyed tone “Again with the where. Gentlemen if we're going to have any fun you need to start using that large piece of matter in your skulls that are supposed to keep your intelligence.” The younger man seemed to not take in Lieutenant Syvlon's words as he tried to raise his body “What the, I can't move.”

The older man kept his head raised looking at the shadowed area where Sylvon stood “So... you knew?” Sylvon tried to keep a neutral tone to her voice but her excitement was starting to bleed through as she replied to the older man on the medical bed “Not at first. But you two aren't exactly regulation, nor acted like it.”

After saying the words Lieutenant Sylvon raised her arm in the darkened room while holding the second headlamp and turned it on pouring light over the pair of men strapped into the medical beds. They no longer wore the white stormtrooper armor nor the black insulation suits or any other stitch of clothing for that matter. Both of them squeezed their eyes shut the first moment or two the light hit their faces. The first older man to awaken was a scruffy looking human man with a salt and peppered beard. The other younger man had  brown hair was partially curled down the side of his young pale face and accented by his bright blue eyes. Now with the light cast on them they saw the thick black banded straps holding down their legs, arms and torso.

They both squinted as their eyes adjusted to the new light source glaring over them. Sylvon continued speaking as the men's eyes were adjusting “So, now. We're going to have a long chat about your information contacts and any informants helping you.” A slight pause came as the younger man reacted “She wants to know contacts? She knows who we are?” Sylvon gave a light chuckle towards the younger man in the med-bed. “Young man it's quite clear who you are... You're survivors of the Rebel raiding party.”

After revealing to the men she knew who they were their demeanor darkened.

A moment later the older man spoke up “What will you do with us?” Sylvon gave the older man a disgusted sneer as her brow lowered when she retorted “Well I thought after we speak for a bit I'd have my way with both of you strapped down so you couldn't resist and me being the kind and caring rapist I am I'd call your Rebel ship for a pick up.” Sylvon said as her lips curled in a hateful tone towards the pair of the captured rebels.

A long pause came between the men as they started to understand the gravity of the situation. Then Syvlon continued “You're enemy soldiers who not only tried to take the ship I serve on but helped bring it down and killed thousands on it and helped kill tens of thousands more at Endor and across the Galaxy with your terrorism. You should know what awaits you.” Sylvon finished the words with a cold emotionless tone that was more terrifying then the hateful voice she used just a moment earlier. She then walked between the two beds shinning the headlamp on the older man's face. The older man looked up at the light of the headlamp as he started speaking “M-My friend doesn't know anything, he was new and doesn't have the clearance.” Sylvon gave the man a quick acknowledgment “Oh I'm sure. By his young looks he's not old enough to have gone through any academy. Yet he was old enough to wield a weapon and use it against his own governments troops.”

The younger man hearing Sylvon and the other man speak about him as if he weren't there with them upset him and he shouted out “The Empire brought this on themselves!” But Sylvon kept shinning the light on the older man and simply exchanged hands she held the headlamp in and with without turning her gaze away from the older mans eyes her opposite arm swung back striking the young man hard in the face. “So, “Captain” lets begin with your ship's designation and compliment.” Sylvon said never turning to look at the damage her punch had given the younger man's face. The older man winced hearing his friend take the punch and looked up at the headlamps light “It's Commander. Commander Glavyn.” Sylvon's face couldn't be seen from the shadows as she held the lamp on the man's face but her voice's demeanor changed he could tell “Ah, I see. So who is your friend here Commander Glavyn?” She asked in a cold professional tone.

Lieutenant Sylvon turned the light back to the young man now wincing with a large red welt on his cheek below his eye. The older man looked over at his companion and nodded “Tell her Corporal.” Sylvon's voice chimed in “Yeeesss, tell me Corporal.” She said as she leaned over his medical bed. The younger man nodded and winced from the pain from the welt as he spoke “C-Corporal Smoldz.” He replied in a meek tone. Sylvon kept the light on Smoldz as she started to speak again “Hmmm you still follow his instruction. The well trained soldier you are.” She said tracing a finger over the closer of his restrained shoulders before continuing “So, Commander how many were in your boarding party?” But this questioned was met with silence as Commander Glavyn was hesitant to give up any more information.

Lieutenant Sylvon still looking at Corporal Smoldz with the headlamp clenched her free hand into a fist and struck her it hard against Smoldz's nose with a crunching sound. The Corporal shrieked in pain as his nose broke and started to bleed. Sylvon gave no emotion to the younger man's now bleeding face and continued to speak to Glavyn while facing the younger man “Oh Commander, I have yet to hear an answer.” She said in a slightly sinister voice. Glavyn raised his head and shouting at Sylvon “Stop this! He doesn't know anything!” he exclaimed towards her. Sylvon gave the slightest of smiles as she continued “I'm sure you're right. That he doesn't, the poor little harmless rebel. But he knows to follow orders against the Empire. He knows that it's no longer on his conscious to kill imperial troops and destroy imperial ships. No, Commander I'm sure he doesn't “know” much. He just does these things openly because it's what his friends were doing.”

After speaking Sylvon took her index finger and jammed it on the Corporal's nose making him cry out in pain and blood start to ooze out. Glavyn sneered at Sylvon “You vile person.” This reply made Sylvon give a slight chuckle “Oh Commander if you only knew.” She said. Commander Glavyn didn't respond instead he spat at her. His saliva landing on her cheek. Sylvon's eyes went wide a moment of anger then became razor thin. She wiped it with the back of her hand and turned the light back towards the older man. She spoke out loud again “ Boy, this old man thinks you don't know much. So I will teach you and he the first lesson. Knowing your situation.”
 
As her words finished Sylvon walked back to the medical supplies in the display terminal. She returned between the beds a moment later with a kit of some kind in her free hand. She glared at the Glavyn as she spoke aloud “So Corporal where do we start on your Commander? Hmmm? His face is quite ugly, unshaven. But his tongue and mouth is what spat on me. Disgusting and insulting to anyone in uniform Corporal. So do we start there?” She asked in a coy tone. Smoldz trying to speak through the pain of his broken nose gave a simple “Pweease dun hurr him.” Sylvon didn't turn from Glavyn as she replied to Smoldz “Oh? Then you wish to be the one I make speak? Hmmm. No. You're much to young and pretty for that as your Commander said.” Glavyn gave a shout as something stuck into the side of his skull and he tried to remain coherent “STOP this, kill us or let us go! Our forces will be here by--”

As Commander Glavyn spoke his words Sylvon took the headlamp she was holding over the pair of men and smashed it into Glavyn's chin and mouth before he finished. Nearly knocking him unconscious as a spurt of blood came out of his chin and cheek where the headlamp smashed into his face. Sylvon spoke with the darkness returned except the bit of light cast by the original lamp on the floor “Another lesson Corporal. It's best not to incur the wrath of your jailer when you don't have to.” She said in a polite tone towards him. Corporal Smoldz stayed quiet as Sylvon put the open medical kit on Glavyn's torso. What was inside was obscured to his vision as Sylvon appeared to pull items from the kit and used them on Glavyn. After a few minutes of curses she resolved herself “There we are, I was hoping to not have to go to such measures but your Commander was very strong and resistant.” Smoldz gave a half mutter “He's one of the best.”

Sylvon stepped away from the older man walking back to the display terminal and sat back in her chair facing them as she picked up the original headlamp and shone it on Glavyn's swollen face. A thin cut on the side of his bald head was now apparent though it wasn't bleeding profusely as the wound to his chin had been. She gave a smile “Indeed he is... or was. Now Commander your Corporal believes you to be one of the best of-- something or other. Is he correct?” She asked Glavyn with an inquisitive tone “No... nev...er.. was.” was Glavyn's reply. Sylvon continued “Such modesty. I'm actually impressed. Though it would be in line with the romantic ideals your kind seems to follow." At her statements Smoldz' anger boiled over and he started shouting at Sylvon “What'd you do to him!?” Sylvon turned taking the last headlamp and shown its light on Smoldz “Hush. Or have you forgotten the rule of the jailor already? Now Commander Glavyn. How many were in your team?” Glavn's voice was meek and without much tone to it “...F-Four...te-teams. A,..B,... C and D. Ten... or twel...ve sol-diers.. per.... t-...eam.” Sylvon gave an acknowledging nod in the darkness “I see. So you obviously had someone on board to give you the access and layouts of the Kumo correct?” She said leaning her head to one side. Glavyn gave his dead toned reply “Sli... cers.” Sylvon gave a frown even though it wasn't about to be seen “Now Commander that upsets me. You know I know there were slicers in your teams. Who gave you access to the mainframes and the layouts to ensure such a rapid shut down of the engines and other vital areas? Who was your collaborator.” A moment of pause fell after Sylvon's words before Glavyn continued “...per-son..... sor... source.” Smoldz spoke up “Pweese don commander.” Sylvon stood back up quickly and with and spoke at Smoldz in a curt tone “Corporal you were warned, now you must accept the consequences.”

Sylvon walked over to Corporal Smoldz and removed her glove gently she balled the glove in her fist. Then with a punching motion down she pushed it deep into the Corporal's mouth as he gagged for breath. Sylvon then punched him hard again in the throat. Smoldz gasped for breath as he tried to choke up the soot stained glove but could not, his lungs started to burn as he tried to breath but was unable to inhale.

After a few moments Sylvon reach down and pulled the glove up from his throat but kept it in his mouth and cupped her hand over it. “Now Corporal if that glove leaves your mouth. You will never need to gasp for air again, do you understand?”

The Corporal gave a slightly nod as he tried to breath through his broken nose and felt the blood oozing out start to coat the glove in his mouth. After a long moment Sylvon turned back to Glavyn. “So, Commander we were on the source of your infiltration, the person who allowed you access into the ships codes to shut Kumo down so easily. Glavyn gave a slight mutter as he replied “...s-source... wa ...was... Fff... Fo...ci.” Sylvon replied back a few times trying to pronounce the word “Faw-Kai, Faux-Kai? Fo-ci?” Glavyn gave a slight nod “...Foci...” Sylvon arched an eyebrow in frustration “Foci, I see. Thank you Commander. Now who or what was FOCI?” Glavyn continued his weak tone as he replied “ ...jus..t... in-tell...”.

Sylvon returned to her seat and crossed her legs smiling at the pair of men “Hmmm I see, so you never knew. Now Commander, I expect some few of your party wore imperial issued uniforms and armor hence why you were able to move about during the chaos less hindered. How many of your party survived?”. “J-ust... a... few...” Glavyn said. “How many that you know of?” Quickly retorted. “F-four.. or ...f-fi-ve...” Glavyn said meekly. Sylvon gave another huff through her nostrils “And your ships designate and compliment?” Glavyn gave her the information without hesitating “Rip...t-tide... one sq-ua.... uad... of... f-...igh...ters ...left. Crew... of Twel...ve-ousa...nd, low- ...er.. To... ha...lf.”

While the older man spoke his sluggish broken words the Corporal held his eyes shut not wanting to hear his friend give up the information to their captor. “Thank you Commander. For your cooperation you shall die a soldiers death.” Sylvon said standing up “Now Corporal, I'm going to remove the glove and if you try anything as foolish as your Comrade did I will not be as lenient as I was earlier.”

Sylvon walked back to the area between the beds and reach over to the Corporal's mouth pulling the glove free. She held the remaining headlamp up to the glove to look at it closely, still covered in soot from the Kumo's crash and fires but now dark red splotches where Smoldz' blood stained the fingers  . After inspecting the glove a moment in front of her Sylvon licked the gloves wet and slightly bloody area from Smoldz's mouth and put the glove back on her hand. The gesture caught the Corporal mentally off guard. “What,... do you want?” He asked from under his broken noses heavy tone. “At this point little to nothing is really left in him or you to get out.” She said with a smirk. Or did you have anything to add to his statements?” She said with one of her eyebrows raised.

The Rebel Corporal's mind raced he needed something to buy time, something that would give them a chance. After a milisecond he remembered “The dead Colonel in the hall. He was one of ours. We were trying to pull his data cylinders from his body when you interrupted.” Smoldz blurted out. Sylvon tilted her head slightly “Ah, Colonel Vimoshi I see. Well I suppose that could make sense, except he was killed from being shot in the back!” She said starting to let the anger run through her voice. Smoldz gave a hurried reply “He was! I swear, ask the Commander said he was!” Sylvon gave a near inaudible hum and turned back towards the barely conscious Glavyn “Commander? Was Vimoshi one of yours?” Glavyn stirred slightly as he responded “N-no... “

Lt. Sylvon turned back towards Smoldz, her eyes shooting daggers at him as she reach for a tool in the kit. Then Glavyn continued “T-trai... tor...”

The words slightly eased Sylvon's sinister look at the young Corporal as she turned back to the older man. “I... see. Commander what was he to do?” Glavyn tried to reply but the drugs had finally taken their toll on him as he slipped unconscious “Uuuh.. mmmmm... ehhh... shhhh....pppuuuuuuu...” Sylvon gave a slightly upbeat tone in her inquiry “Commander?” But no response came from Glavyn except light breathing. “Hmmm, it seems the good Commander is no longer able to respond.” She said in a near gleeful tone. Just then a clang from somewhere in the Kumo's decks caught Sylvon's attention for a moment as she continued her words “Perhaps others have come looking for assistance, or perhaps some of your fellow surviving raiders.”

Sylvon went over to the small terminal and reach down into the darkness pulling her blaster to her hip and re-holstering it. “Let's have a look shall we?”

After finishing her words Sylvon leaned under the door to the medical bay and shined the headlamp down the corridor. She saw a pair of men wearing black jumpsuits coming down the hall towards her location. One was holding the other up who seemed incapacitated both were wearing large black helmets with red visors distinguishing them as imperial gunners. A few moments later Sylvon brought them into the medical bay and lay the unconscious imperial on one of the remaining unused medical beds and removed his large black helmet revealing a brown haired man that looked very pale and sickly.

The other gunner didn't wait to watch Sylvon lay the unconscious man on one of the free beds. Breathing hard he collapsed into the small chair next to the display terminal Syvlon had just recently been sitting in. He pulled off his large shell like helmet revealing his sweating face. His skin was red from heat and covered in soot from fire with streaks from sweat that had poured out of him making his face look dirty and burned. His short red hair had streaks of dirt and grime through it. Sylvon turned back to the gunner sitting in the chair trying to regain his breath “Looks like you boys took it rough where were you stationed?” The gunner still breathing heavily in the chair kept his eyes closed as he replied. “We were near port gunnery station three before the crash. After we made landfall we had to claw our way out of the wreckage and the flooding.” he said as the words were forced from his lips between breaths. Sylvon continued as she walked towards the man “It's a wonder you survived. So now open your eyes ...sergeant. So I can ask you some more questions.”

The man in the chair breathing heavily opened his eyes as Sylvon shone the lamp's light directly at him. He winced and opened his eyes wide when he saw the blaster muzzle coming into focus. “S, sir?” He asked in a surprised and frightened voice. Sylvon didn't reply to his question and instead asked a question of her own “Crew compliment of the Kumo?” But the gunner still hesitated “Sir? I don't understand?” Sylvon kept her blaster pointed at him “It's simple specialist. The crew was infiltrated and had traitors aboard and I'm not taking any chances. What is the crew compliment?!” She said to the gunner sternly. The gunner's breathing was nearly normal when he replied “Fourtyseven thousand approximately with special detachments missing for Endor.” The gunner said wearily. Sylvon didn't give the question a chance to linger before she rifled off another “Last place Kumo had repair work done before the beginning of the Endor operation.” The gunner gulped starring at the blaster muzzle she held pointing at him “Bilbringi Shipyards.” he replied. “And Commander of the Ship?” Syvlon continued her barrage of questions. The gunner gave a sigh and a smirk before replying “One of the greatest men to command a Star Destroyer sir, Captain Kai.”

After the last answer Sylvon gave a slight smirk as she lifted her blaster from the man's face and re-holstered it. “What's your name Sergeant?” She asked in a cool manner. “Raem sir.” the gunner replied in a relieved voice. Sylvon let her eyes move back and forth over him rapidly “Hmmm... as in Gyce Raem, specialist Master Sergeant.” The answer catching Raem off guard “Y, yes sir. You know me?” Sylvon nodded “It's my job to know you Specialist.” Raem gave a slight nod “Apologies I don't know you sir.” Sylvon tilted her head “You don't and nor will you for now. Lieutenant is good enough for now after I know I can trust you and your friend.” Sylvon said turning the headlamp to the unconscious gunner the medical bed he laid in.

Raem stood from the chair with a questioning glance at the other men in the room “Who are these other two?” Sylvon gave a slight smirk turning the lamp on the pair of nude men in the medical beds. “They “we're” rebel infiltrators. However now one is unconscious unlikely to wake for a day or two and the other is being quiet hoping to save his own life.” she gleemed.

The words reminded Raem of something and he quickly looked at the opened Med-bay doors and scooted away as he spoke up “Lieutenant we need to go. Myself and Uwer and two others were on our way to the main hangar to try and escape when we encountered these huge creatures in the darkness. They attacked us but we ran. One just grazed Uwer and it nearly killed him.” Sylvon turned her gaze back at the gunner with a questioning look “Huge creatures?”. Raem continued “Yessir, we weren't able to make them out too well because of the dark but they killed the other two in our group all we heard was a half muffled cry out and then they were gone. They came at us from the behind the bulk head tearing right through the metal and the decks.” Sylvon pulled her blaster back out as she grabbed the headlamp and shined it at the Med-bay door. Raem chimed in “Closing the door wont do much sir, they tore through the bulkheads like paper.” Sylvon gave a slight nod replying back “No need to worry about that, we forced the door up and it's now jammed open. So these things won't be hindered by it if they decided to come for us.” Raem started to look nervous and let it creep into his voice “We should go sir.” Sylvon gave a nod towards the other gunner in the bed shining the light on him as she started to speak “We will as soon as your frie-”

But Sylvon's words stopped the instant she projected the light on the wounded man Raem had come with. Uwer's exposed skin on his body had started to turn pale gray as he flesh started to slowly droop from his bones and puddle on the medical bed. “ What in the name of...” She exclaimed. Raem didn't hesitate “Sir we should go, now.” “I think you're right Specialist.” Just then Smoldz gave a yelp towards the pair of imperials “Wait please! Don't leave us!”

Sylvon turned back towards the pair of men on the beds and looked at them coldly. As she re-holstered her personal blaster. “Specialist get the pair of blasters these two used and any ammo they had  as well. You're in charge of it so I suggest using on of their utility belts.” Raem ran over to the pile of armor and clips on the floor as he replied “Yes sir.” Smoldz started to let fear drip into his voice as he pleaded with them “Please, don't.” Smoldz said twisting in his straps “At least give us a fighting chance!”

As Smoldz pleaded towards Sylvon Raem leaned over the grabbed the utility belts and blasters from the pile of equipment at the edge of Commander Glavyn's bed. Lieutenant Sylvon held the lamp slowly walking over towards Raem as he was standing up with the equipment. “Specialist, use the most fully charged blaster. Keep the power packs for reloads. Give me the other blaster from their equipment.” She said in quickly. “Yes sir.” Raem said handing Sylvon one of the stormtroopers E-11's.

Lieutenant Sylvon looked at the blaster a moment and held it to Commander Glavyn's head as if contemplating something. Smoldz was in terror afraid to say anything that might make her jump and pull the trigger but not wanting to see his friend killed. A second later Sylvon turned towards Smoldz. “You both die now, or you carry him out yourself. Either way you don't get to be alone.” Sylvon said with a half smirk to her tone.

Without a second thought Smoldz leaped at the opportunity to keep his life and nodded. After a long pause of Lieutenant Sylvon frowned at Commander Glavyn's unconscious body pulled the blaster away and walked to the side of the bed to move the control yoke for the straps. “In a few minutes the straps will decompress and you and your scum will be able to leave. I suggest never coming within sight of me or Specialist Raem, corporal. Or else I will personally make sure your body is cut into pieces while you're still alive.” Smoldz nodded quietly without saying a word. Sylvon gave a half smirk “You're remembering your lesson, good. Specialist come, we'll make our exit another way from which you came.” As Sylvon spoke to Raem Smoldz cried out “A blaster! Or something to fend these things off with?!” But instead Sylvon smirked as Raem passed her going into the corridor “You think too much of yourself young man, or too little of me. That's quite offensive.” Sylvon said as she turned away into the corridor.

A moment later Sylvon and Raem were gone. Down the opposite direction Specialists Raem and Uwer had come.

Although it was only a few more minutes before Smoldz heard the medical bed's straps start to decompress it felt like an eternity keeping his eyes in the direction of the door that had darkened drastically since the imperial's left with the headlamp. When the beds straps finally loosened enough for Smoldz to pull out of he slid from the bed and knelt behind it trying to contemplate his next step. His face was bruised and nose bleeding and Glavyn was going to need him to get out of here.


Back down the corridor Specialist Raem and Lieutenant Syvlon briskly jogged, each holding a utility belt around a shoulder. As they traversed the twisted decks beyond the Med-Bay the sounds of clanging and skittering could be heard from different sections of the ship. “Lieutenant, are you sure it was wise to let that scum live?” Raem said to Sylvon “Your tale of these creatures in the ship is the only reason I decided to Specialist.” Raem gave a confused look as they hustled down another corridor “Apologies sir I'm not sure I understand.” Sylvon gave a half breath in her reply “Understandable Specialist, I doubt you've had advanced tactics training.” Raem was slightly crestfallen “No... sir.” Sylvon continued “ The creatures, if they are as fierce as you say they, will find the pair of rebels and take care of them for us. While buying us additional time to escape.” Raem nodded his head as they continued to jog down another hallway “I see, no I hadn't thought of that, I just figured you were soft on them.” Sylvon gave a raised eyebrow but lowered it as they continued moving through the twisted hulk of Kumo “No I don't have the right bits to.” She said. The pair of them started to chuckle quietly as Sylvon finished her joke. Both still moving quickly down the maze of corridors and bulk head doors sealed or burned and twisted. The skittering behind them had grown further away for a time.

As they turned a corner they came to an intersection in the corridor. They could continue straight or turn right. Sylvon used the headlamp to check the corridor ahead. Like most it was partially buckled from the crash with areas scorched black from fire. The pair checked the right corridor and saw it buckled as well but along with black scorch marks fresh red blood was spattered on the walls and large streaks. Raem spoke first “Someone was here recently.” Sylvon nodded “ “Was” being the key word Specialist. I suggest we stay on course it may be longer to the upper hangar but considering we have guests it will probably be safer.” “Probably” being the key word there as well sir?” Raem replied.

Lt. Sylvon gave him a crooked eyebrow of annoyance to the reply the specialist gave. She decided to dismiss the man's untimely fraternization with a superior officer he just met and was not familiar with. Lieutenant Sylvon simply replied with “On we go.”

[Tamer]

Off to share. Thanks for the warning.

[Rezikai]

*****Riptide's crash site*****

It had been a few hours since the raid on his ship and Captain Barrax sat in his chair in the command center placed the mountain cave above his ship the Riptide going over the post battle report “Well people. We we're lucky at best.” the older calamari captain said in his throaty rough voice.

Around the small holotable in the middle of the command center sat the officers of the Riptide. Three Mon Calamari men and a Mon Calamari woman and a human male. Commander Shellis and Commander Vorm were two of the Mon Calamari men around the holographic image of the Riptide and mountain range with the frozen scene of the Tie fighters and Y-Wings dueling for air supremacy. Commander Shellis used the Captain's lead in statement to start the details of the report.

Commander Shellis waved a webbed hand over the table as he started to speak “ As far as we know this was their probe at our defenses. We must conclude that the imp's didn't expect us to be in as good of shape as we were or they would have sent more snubs, or a bombing sortie.” Shellis nodded toward Commander Vorm who used the motion towards him to start speaking “These pilots weren't your average cadets recruited and bucking for their year in fighter service either to make ship officer either. Some of their pilots had experience”. At that comment Barrax grumbled a comment “Yes, the Kumo was at the suppression of the Halasia system two years ago. It's possible most of the pilots have had experience from that campaign.” He continued “What is the status of LONGSPEAR?”.

The human male at the table was Captain Dryce. He was thin for a human with pale skin and bright red hair cut short and neat combed over to one side. Dryce was wearing his green fatigues and tan vest as many of the rebellion ground forces has worn. He reach a hand over and clicked on the controls of the holo table showing a holographic schematic of the planet and an exit vector of a small arrow as it left orbit and entered hyperspace.

Dryce spoke up “Lieutenant Klavine should have reported to the Alliance fleet at Endor by now though we've heard no word back in over 6 hours.” Commander Shellis leaned over the holo table pointing a webbed hand into the orange and green holographic images. He spoke with a more inquisitive tone “It's possible the Imperial Fleet had unaccounted for reserves and the rest of our fleet is still battling it out with them and he either was destroyed or is assisting.”

Captain Barrax spoke up after the statement. “Unlikely. While the Empire had the drop on us at the beginning of the battle they would have called up reserve ships after the Superstar Destroyer was destroyed and their own forces were getting pummeled. We left the battle long after it was decidedly over and Homeone never reported more imperial hardware moving into the system.”

Commander Shellis chimed in “Perhaps we can send another fighter out to make contact.” Vorm spoke up “I'd suggest against it. With the losses during the raid we're down to five Y-wings which isn't really enough to provide umbrella cover for our crash as is. If the imp try hitting us again which they are surely to do we'll need everything to try and repel them.” Captain Barrax interjected between the two after Commander Vorm's statement “Lieutenant Ploshim what is the status of our battery placements?” The female Mon Calamari turned towards Captain Barrax as she flipped controls of the holotable. The image of LONGSPEAR's projected heading flashed away and the mountainside and Riptide crash returned with a graph overlay with green squares marking multiple areas on the mountain above and lateral of the Riptide's crash site. Ploshim spoke up as the image changed “We still have eight of the heavy turbo laser's still operational. If the fighters come again this time we'll be able to give them the pasting they deserve.” she said with a confident tone.

Captain Barrax chuckled a moment at that statement as he imagined Tie fighters being hit by ground fire and exploding into blue icing and landing on small pastry cakes then eating them as the thought faded he spoke up “Well it seems the ground units will be able to defend ourselves better next time the imps return. Vorm, your pair of pilots set out for Clarion survivors and to set beacons? What's happened so far?” Commander Vorm's large eyes half closed as his mood darkened at the Captain's inquiry. He punched on the holotable controls and a graphic of the continent replaced the mountain range. On the green image of the continent four blue circles appeared with identification marks. Vorm started to reply “Blue Three and Five found four Clarion escape pods around the northern edge of the continent a few hours ago. However when they investigated the crewmen were no where to be found. The pods were open and some evidence of small camps were made but we're unsure of what happened. We think they may have been picked up by imperial sentries or formed up together to get to a centralized location.” Barrax responded “That's distressing Commander. I'm hoping the Imps didn't get a hold of them first. If any of the Clarion survivors knew about our spies it would mean their deaths for sure regardless if they survived the crash. What is your fighters E.T.A?” Vorm shot him a quick reply back “They were heading inbound but received a weak signal from the Southwest. They are going to see if it's another pod that drifted out from the others.”

Barrax nodded as he continued his inquiry “I see, give me a report when they are back to base. Now what of SPEAR?” Commander Vorm cleared his throat as he clicked controls on the holotable again. The image of the four circles over the continent was replaced by the forested area below Riptide further down the mountain. A red line showed the vector of SPEAR skimming the treed before careening sharply beyond sensor range off the holomap. “We haven't found the wreckage of her crash yet. We've been trying to re-establish contact with her fighters computer in case she is just too far beyond the search teams range and landed. But with the damage her A-wing took in the collision it's unlikely Lt. Tritan wasn't able to stay up for long before hitting the deck. We have yet to receive a transmitter signal if she did eject.”

Captai Barrax spoke again “One of Blue Squadron was lost near her last nav-point correct?” Vorm replied “Yes sir Lieutenant Draxan was shot down in the same area his craft hard landed through the trees and we don't expect him to recover from his wounds.” Barrax continued “Hmmm, we will hope for the best for Lieutenant Tritan but must assume the worst and plan accordingly. Recall the recovery teams to help man the defensive batteries.”

A moment later the human man raised a hand in protest to the last statement.

Barrax noticed the human's motion and nodded as he spoke “Yes Commander Dryce?”

Dryce cleared his throat and spoke “With permission sir a few of our team is still left, two or three of us that made it back to Riptide won't make any difference for the gunnery crews. I'd like to take them for an extended search for Tritan or at least her ship to confirm if she survived.” Captain Barrax let the statement sit a moment as he rubbed his webbed hand over his large squid like forehead before replying “Fine, take the men from your unit. But don't be too long Commander, should the Alliance have to do a fast pick-up as we've had to do so many times before I'd hate to leave you behind.” Dryce nodded in acknowledgment as he replied. “We'll be home before dinner is ready Sir.” Captain Barrax opened his large fishlike eyes wide and gave a broad smile back at the human as the mention of food reminded him of his previous thoughts “At least be home before the pastries are served for dessert Captain”.



-Kumo survivor's column *****

The morning skies looked serene to TK1979 Corporal Zaym. As serene as it could from behind  his optical lenses in his helmet. He continued his gaze sky ward even while more reports came through his helmets comm. He looked back down at the small circle of people sitting and resting next to supplies and equipment. They were survivors from Kumo's crash and now all of them were a sitting in one of the many small supply camps about half a day's hike from the rally point.

Zaym had stayed with Captain Kai all the previous day and through the evening until the column had read the resting point. Kai had ordered Zaym out of the command tent when Major Araed arrived. Zaym had noticed Major Araed was much younger then he expected for her rank but made sure not to stare. Araed was a slender woman wearing the black uniform of the imperial army stormtrooper officers corp. She had very pale skin with bright wide blue eyes and bright blonde hair tucked into a bun at the back of her head with her black cap covering her golden lock's.

Zaym felt a slight depression for being ordered away from Captain Kai as he was excited to be the Captain's private escort through the last few days. He was always there when reports came in and always was the first to know the news of what was going on. During stormtrooper assignments news of any kind was rare and for a few days Zaym had been the conduit from which the exciting events had been projected from Captain Kai to the rest of the Kumo's crew and vice versa. Zaym sat with his E-11 leaned up against a supply crate next to him as he sat resting a few moments and looking at the ground. Around the corporal was a handful of imperial technicians in varying positions of rest. Some were eating rations others were trying to catch sleep in the soft sand using whatever they could for comfort. One imperial navy trooper was snoozing on the sand using his large black mushroom shaped helmet under his head as a small albeit hard headrest.

Corpoal Zaym's thoughts bounced around his mind about the Captain's orders relieving Major Gridon of command of the 73rd Legion to Commander Karamat. They were close enough to the rally point that some of the long range sentries from Karamat's scouts were able to make contact with Zaym's communications and he had learned the Major was “cooling off” as the other troopers put it.

However the image of Major Araed kept recurring in his mind. He found her attractive and very polite. She said little to him except where the Captain was at when she entered the supply area and Zaym directed her to the small command tent. Perhaps he was just not used to seeing such a younger adult in such a high rank. He shook his head slightly trying to blur the image of her from his mind when the sound of foot steps crunching through the sand and makeshift walk planks came aloud and Zaym looked up from behind his optic lenses and saw his minds image standing in front of him in the form of the stormtrooper officer Araed. He quickly stood at attention and saw the others technicians and troopers in the small supply area had vacated. “Hello again Corpoal.” Araed said with a soft slow monotone voice. “Kai has ordered you back to him for a small briefing on a mission he's assigning to us.” TK1979 Zaym nodded and his microphoned voice came through his helmets speaker “Yes Major. I'll go immediately.” “Good, please report to the center of this column for an equipment check and load. Also, you are still familiar with using an Aratech 74-Z?” Zaym gave the slightest of pauses and nodded as he replied through his helmet “It's been a little while since I used one but yes.” Major Araed gave a warm smile towards him and nodded “Fair enough. I'll be waiting as will the rest of our mission team. Please be prompt Corporal.” Araed said with a slightly lighter warmer tone to her voice. Zaym gave his affirmative and marched off around the supply area to the command tent.

Inside Zaym found Captain Kai and Vishar standing around a small holomap of the Rally point. Kai waved him over to the map and Zaym strode over “Commander Araed said you requested me sir?” Kai gave him an nod with out much of any expression on his face and turned back to the holographic map of the rally point. “You're being assigned to Araed's scout unit for this mission.” Kai gave a slight pause and continued “I want direct communication with Araed of course but she has a habit of being quiet more then is necessary. Corporal Zaym remembered the prior few days with the crash and column of survivors, more to the point the fact Major Araed never reported in her survival nor her location until Kai requested it. “A product of her special training I assume.” Vishar muttered behind Kai who turned shooting him an angry frown which was signal enough for Vishar to stifle. Corporal Zaym had become familiar with Kai's angered face over the last few days since the crash of the Kumo as he kept it as a near permanent expression as the horrible reports from the crash or the survivor's trickled in. In fact about the only time he noticed the captain's mood change was when report of one of the other officers survived.

Kai turned toward the stormtrooper corporal and continued. “Understand Corporal that your primary objective is reconnaissance. You may find other issues arise during the setting of the mission parameters but I am to be fully aware of everything.” Corporal Zaym gave a slight nod as a “Understood sir.” in a microphone sounding voice came through his helmet. The Corporal was glad to be back in the excitement of things but something gave him a sense of dread. As Kai continued the hologram of the rally point zoomed out to show the entire continent. It was the first time the Corporal had a chance to take it in. The continent was shaped much like a five point star with it's northern point sheered off and the remaining four outcroppings of land seem to have slightly rough with beaches and forests. The hologram then zoomed back in to the northwestern peninsula and even more westward past the rally point to the red sandy area at peninsula's furthest reach before the ocean and beach took the screen. “Here, is your destination.” Kai began. “Major Araed is on a recovery mission and you're to assist her and her unit but reconnaissance and communication is your primary objective.” The stormtooper nodded and his voice cracked through his microphone “May I ask what we are recovering sir? One of the escape pods?” Zaym asked inquisitively. Kai gave a half snort through his nose and shook his head “No, Major Gridon's incompetence or outright lack of duty is going to be called into question regarding the loss of them. No corporal Major Araed is on a mission to recover an artifact. A...” Kai paused a moment subduing his next word and instead said “A, classified one. Understand?” The stormtrooper nodded again “Yes sir.” “Go now and report to her and get ready.” Kai finished. TK1979 nodded a final time and turned and strode out of the command tent without another word.

Kai watched him leave and without turning to Vishar he spoke up “You don't have to cower like a rodent Vishar, you know what you said was out of place. Get over your mistake we can't doddle over our follies.” Vishar cleared his throat and spoke up “Th-thank you sir. Do you think it wise to send someone so low in rank and clearance with the Major?” Kai turned with a smirk on his face “That's exactly why. Someone without their own motivations.” Vishar gave a slight nod as he remembered he himself was not much different from the corporal in rank. “So now let us get to the pressing matter.” Kai continued.

Vishar punched up a few buttons on the holotable and the map of the peninsula's outermost edge faded and a transmission call was placed. A moment later the holographic upper torso of Commander Karamat became visible. The blue and white hologram had some minor interference in the clearness of the image but Vishar could see that Karamat had kept the lock of her red hair dangling down in front of the side of her face. Kai finally gave the slightest of smiles before wiping it away from his face as he nodded towards the image of the Commander. “Good to see you arrived Commander, I hope everything went smoothly.” He said toward her. Karamat gave the faintest of smirks before letting her face return to her icy demeanor. “The trip was smooth. Though Gridon was personally insulted to know I was taking over his operation here.” Kai gave a feigned surprised expression but was not trying to be too serious with it “Oh?” Karamat continued “Yes, he tried to get personally physical so I arced him and put him and his personal escorts in a Sentinel to cool off until you arrive.” Kai gave a half smirk and replied “Good to know you still handle yourself as well as I remember.”

Karamat narrowed her eyes in an icy stare of something different Vishar could only assume was anger but the normal pursing of lips or clenching of teeth he would expect weren't there as he had seen earlier with the Commander. Karamat gave a more strained reply “In-deed Captain.” Vishar gave an inaudible gulp as he assumed this was another inside comment similar to the field report one between Kai and Karamat. However unlike last time this was much different. Vishar could see the contempt start to turn the cheeks of Karamat's holographic image into pursing her lips with annoyance towards the Captain.

However Kai continued to talk through Karamat's displeased image as if nothing were wrong “The report you sent of this little raid Gridon put together, was subtle and disturbing.” Karamat's gaze started to return to her normal cool professional demeanor as she replied “I thought you would notice this. I didn't know he had sent it until I reminded Ryvil of what happens to people that cross me. But with the exception of Ryvil it was our squadron leaders that were sent, which were our most experienced pilots.” Kai looked over at datapad laying on the holotable and winced “Disturbing.” Was his reply before continuing “As of now you're in command of the rescue operation for the escape pods from Kumo. If there are any left since no action was ever taken for them to begin with. Remember to use ties sparingly as most will be needed to convert solar energy to power cells so I suggest using a shuttle. We should be showing up around mid day if our luck holds.” Karamat gave a slight easing to her cool demeanor as she replied “I find that luck is just an assortment of skills used at the proper time in the correct way Captain. With no further engagement of the indig's it seems our plan to traverse the beaches was the correct choice.” Kai flashed her a smirk “Commander I have found many, many times that luck will beat skill every time.” The Commander crooked an eyebrow in a bit of annoyance and this time did curl her lip some Vishar noticed but he dared not mention it to the Captain. “Karamat out.” She said as she reach forward to turn off the transmission and her image faded away. Captain Kai leaned over the holotable running his hand through his thick jet black hair. He closed his eyes a moment “Vishar, that woman can be stressful.” Kai said before reopening them. Vishar gave a small nod unsure exactly what the Captain meant. Kai turned and gave a slight turn to his chin and shook his head “I suppose I'll tell you the story sometime, of why she hates me so.” Vishar gave a slight smile and measured chuckle as he tried to reply “I, I hope so sir.” Kai continued “Maybe when I'm out of the Navy or we're both retired.” Kai chuckled and then continued “Well lets hope we both live to see that.”

Vishar gave a slight chuckle with the Captain as he said the words but deep down he was screaming his agreement. He wanted nothing more then to be off this rock and find a tavern to dive into.


Back at the supply area Major Araed's team had assembled TK1979 Corporal Zaym had arrived a few moments after the rest. The group consisted of seven scout troopers of which at least two were female Zaym assumed from their stature. One of the scout troopers pointed to a supply crate and Zaym nodded and walked over towards it and looked in seeing a set of scout armor inside. He gave a sigh inside his helmet inaudible to the rest of the group.

He turned and saw that the rest of the group were all scout troopers and he assumed one of them was Major Araed. Zaym started to change his armor as a scout trooper gathered the rest around in a semi circle. “While the Corporal gears up I'll go over the objectives.” The female voice of Major Araed said through the microphoned helmet of the center scout trooper. She reach up and flipped up her helmet's mask revealing her face. Zaym had gotten his arm and leg armors off and rushed to get out of his chest armor and body bucket as she spoke. “Our primary objective is a small object. About fifteen centimeters in height in a pyramid shape. Color may vary as it may be corroded or sand pitted but it originally was red.” Araed looked to make sure Zaym was paying attention before continuing “The target area is the furthest point on the peninsula and unfortunately with most of the heavy weapons and armor being used as defensive perimeter screen we get the job of search and recovery.”

Araed leaned over in the sand of the beach and drew the edge of the peninsula and made a few marks representing the target location on the peninsula and the rally point. “The area is a large tilted rock formation with a cave entrance on the base of the elevated side. That cave opens into a larger system with some old ruins of a long dead species that lived here apparently.” She gave a slight sigh  “But this object is somehow important enough for the Captain to issue it as an objective even though most of the crew is waiting for pick up from this rock.” She gave a snort and a half laugh which garnered the half chuckle from a few of the other scout troopers. “So let's get it fast and get back.” Araed finished her mission statement towards as she drew lines from the rally point to the target and back, then looked up smiling at the others on the team.

By now Corporal Zaym had finished getting his armor off and had put on most of the scout armor. “Are there any questions?” Araed asked with her warm gaze towards the other men and women wearing the scout armor. She then turned her soft gaze towards Zaym who had finished his transition into the scout armor and was taking a place in the semi-circle of men and women also wearing the same. “None from you Corporal?” Araed asked slightly anxiously. Zaym gave her a slight shake of his head and a “No ma'am” as he voiced through the helmets speaker. He had thought he'd have some questions but the warm gaze from the Major made him forego anything else on his mind. “Good. We'll be in the rally point within two or three hours making a stop to resupply and refuel and pick up a chariot for support. Then another three to four to reach the target destination. Let's move out.” Araed said clapping her gloved hands together.

Araed finished and flipped her visor on her helmet back down over her face with a smile and turned walking toward her speeder bike. The speeder bikes had been parked in a line with a cadre of materials ranging from scouting equipment on some to heavy sniper rifles on others.

After the other seven scouts had left a sole unused speeder bike TK1979 took his E-11 and a scout pistol with him as he tossed the few items including the communicator the Captain had given him into one of the scout teams black satchel bags that he had brought from the supply crate. He looked up at the sky again now seeing the planet's sun burn away the last of the dark blues and purples from the sky and gave a breathe as he fired up his bike and with a whirl-whoop he bolted it into movement into the direction of the others on the team.

[Tamer]

Cool. A new chapter let me go share this.

[Rezikai]

Clarion recovery flight mission from Bluesquadrons Y-wings

Zooming in the night sky a pair of Koensayr Manufacturing Y-Wings zoomed over the forested landscape of planet. The pair had been away from their ship the Riptide most of the evening searching for survivor's of the Clarion's destruction. Inside the cockpits the pair of pilots, young Lieutenant Cashil and the aged veteran Lieutenant Zovish scanned ahead for any trace of their comrades.

The pair had landed at all four of the Clarions escape pods they located. But each time the searched for the survivors inside all they found were traces. The first pod had a small campsite set up outside of it with a firepit that had been used and was burned down to ash and coals by the time their Y-Wing's arrived. By the fourth pod they found the only thing they found was a few footprints trailing off into the grass.

Lieutenant Cashil was thinking of what could the escape pod survivors be doing. Had they been captured perhaps? Or maybe met with other survivors and decided to try and hike to Riptide's crash in hopes of linking with it's survivors. As the myriad of questions were rattling around in her head her speakers crackled on and the aged graveled voice of the elder of the squadron Lt. Zovish came through “We're getting closer on this faint signal but it's much further southwest then I expected.” Cashil blinked her large mon calamari eyes and spoke into her helmets mic “Lets hope its something we're starting to get low on fuel as it is being out all night.” Zovish gave a half chuckle and turned his large dark grey and blue mon calamari head towards his right to gaze over at Cashil's Y-Wing as he did. Cashil continued to speak as Zovish turned back away from gazing at her Y-Wing “Though at least its away from the imperial signals we were picking up. I'm actually surprised at how many Imp escape pod signals we encountered.” Cashil let the statement hang a moment as she felt slightly sorry for the people in the imperial pods signatures pulsing out for assistance and pick up. But the pair of Y-Wing pilots decided not to land at them, they had their own people to worry about first. They recorded the locations so when the data is given over to Riptide's command they can decide what to do with them. The sorrow in her emotion soon steeled over when the mental image of the Clarion exploding into thousands of pieces tore into the planet's atmosphere. She had known many of the fellow pilots on the Clarion but none of them had been left before the jump away from Endor in pursuit of the Star Destroyer.

Which Cashil also found odd. But now was not the time to worry about it she told herself. During the moments of silence of her thoughts Zovish's voice crackled through her cockpit again. “Hopefully they didn't assemble and make make off with the Clarion's people.

After a few moments the sensors start to zero in on the faint signal and the pair of Y-Wings bank towards the northern edge of a small cluster of stout craggy hills the signal was coming from. The moon illuminated the sides of the crags enough to make them to judge the distance before the pair came across a small plateau atop a cluster of the hills. The plateau itself was covered in high grass and spotted with large rocks and boulders a larger rock formation was off to the northwestern side of the plateau creating a large slug looking rock formation.

Cashil spoke through her comm-link as the pair circled the plateau making sure it was safe to land “It's definitely come from here but I don't see anything. Should we hit the deck like the rest?”. After Cashil finished her sentence Zovish grumbled a reply “I think it should be fine, no Imp pods came down anywhere near here and this is about as far from their crash site on this rock as you can get. Even still, lets be careful.

A few moments later the Y-Wings come down and landed on the soft grass area. The pair of pilots hopped out of their cockpit each with a pack on their back for supplies and a blaster holstered. Zovish had a sensor tracker in his hands trying to keep with the faint signal. As they started towards the location of the signal Zovish extended the pair of antennae from the sensor reader and punched on it's controls “It's definitely in this direction.” He barked towards Cashil as she was out of her Y-Wing striding over to him. She scanned her younger Mon calamari eyes around the area “This would have been better during the daylight hours.” She said. Zovish kept his large mon-calamari eyes on the tracker “No argument here but we need to remember it's not about us and these convenient fighters to crawl back into. It's about who may be hurt down here.

Lieutenant Cashil nodded in agreement and the pair started to walk towards the craggy moonlit rock formation. Eventually the pair looked all over the large flat rocks but found nothing. Cashil climbed to the top of a small rock formation adjacent to the large slug shaped rock formation as Zovish stayed below checking the readings on his trackers scopes “It's got to be here the scopes say were right on top of it.” Zovish grouched his complaint aloud. Cashil turned around looking at the rock formations with a questioning tone “Well where is it then? I don't see anything out here other then rocks and shadows.”

Zovish looked up at the moonlit rocks and Cashil on the formation when he noticed the set of rocks at the bottom of the slug shaped rocks. Four round rocks sticking up like fat dinner plates. At first he thought it was similar to a set our power generators but on a much smaller scale. But the formation of all four were too near identical to occur naturally. An idea came to his mind as he stared at the forms “Wait,... I think--”. “Aha! Found something.” Cashil proclaimed.

Looking up from the four similar shaped rocks Zovish noticed Cashil had come back down from them near the bottom of the slug shaped rock formation next to a large rock covered in sediment and dirt. Zovish half closed his older mon calamari eyes “What is it?” He inquired towards Cashil “It's...a handle put on the top of this rock?” Cashil said in a more befuddled tone. Zovish climbed up to Cashil to inspect her finding. “Hmmm, I bet its a hatch of some kind.” She claimed. Zovish cleared his throat as he stood a moment in thought “Whatever it is, its not any of our people.” Cashil turned to him, “I wonder if it's a bunker, maybe this is where the occupants of the pod came to? Or maybe its an old settlers ship that got fossilized.” Zovish gave a half sigh looking back down at his tracker “Well whatever it is it's still putting out a weak signal.” A second later Cashil spoke up “Ah I think I got it.” With a screech of rusted metal Lieutenant Cashil pulled the handle and a meter of the dirt moved the section shifted and fell off the side of a large square section of the now exposed metal.

Cashil gave a curious look to the new opening of the top of the rock formation “Hmm, this thing isn't solid rock. It just looks that way.” Zovish leaned over looking into the opening “Maybe for a reason.” Cashil didn't respond and instead leaned down looking into the opening. She turned to Zovish and said “Well whatever that reason was looks like no one's been in or out in some time.” Zovish noticed the dirt and dark dust coming from the edge of the opening of the newly opened dark hole had rubbed onto Cashil's orange jumpsuit and he asked “You're not going in I hope.” Cashil gave her fellow pilot a squinted look with her large mon calamari eyes as she replied “Of course! Who knows whats in here. If there's a signal then there is someone in here and they might need help.” Zovish gave his large squid shaped head a rub with his flipper and and shook it back and forth “I don't know, I have a bad feeling about this.” But as he finished his words Cashil had slid out her hand lamp and shone it inside and saw what looked like dirt of a floor or ground inside. Without much hesitation she knelt down and lowered herself into the opening and dropped inside.

As Zovish knelt himself down to the edge of the opening he looked back at the slugg shape of the larger rock formation he was sitting on. The view from this angle started to cause him memory to click as if de-javu was slowly coming to him. He tried to think of where he had seen the shape of this kind before. After a moment in unsuccessful reflection he heard Cashil's voice say something inside. Zovish put a foot inside the newly square shaped hole and slowly dropped inside.

The opening immediately got wide and deep once inside Zovish's feet found register in damp ground and dirt before he realized he could easily stand at full height inside the structure.

The illumination from Lieutenant Cashil's hand lamp cast light over old metal plating and large piping going along the walls. The occasional set of hooks and and straps were dangling against wall mounted railings as if they were there to hang a flight suit or coat on. The thick coats of spider webbing continued down the right side of the corridor while the left side was relatively unaltered. Cashil gave a slight exhale as she started to speak “Well this is quaint. What do you think this is a ship maybe?” Zovish came up beside her “Hmmm, not sure.” He said as he moved his tracker deeper to one side of the darkened area “Our signal is coming that way.” Zovish finished by pointing towards their left.

Cashil and Zovish continued down their left until she reach a circular pressure hatch that was partially ajar. Cashil gripped it with her webbed flipper and the hatch swung inward to the side relatively easy. Past the hatch lay a smaller sized circular causeway with thick rotting dusty cables on the sides and dark stinking water between sides of dark mud on the floor. Cashil shone her light down the small causeway and spotted another circular hatch about 4 meters away. She spoke up upon seeing the other hatch “A pressure lock possibly?” Zovish nodded in agreement before Cashil continued “Hmph. Kind of small for us. I should fit fine.” Zovish turned to her “What's this “I” talk.” as he leaned into the darkened causeway.

Lieutenant Zovish lead the pair down the causeway as he continued looking on his sensor tracker. The mud and water on the floor of the causeway was sturdier then he expected and felt nearly organic to him. He couldn't help the nagging feeling he knew where he was. Then Cashil tripped and fell to one knee on the soft mud. When she arose blackish goo stained her orange flight-suit down past her knee. “Ugh, I can't think of the amount of time I'll need in the sonic shower after this.” She grumbled but Zovish wasn't in the mood for comedic statements “Shhh. We're almost there.” Cashil gave Zovish an annoyed look as she continued walking behind him. As she shown the hand lamp past him as they traversed towards the circular hatch at the end of the small causeway. “Thank the tides.” Cashil exclaimed over a sigh. Zovish just gave a look up from his tracker as he replied and moved forward towards the hatch “It's right ahead.”.

A second later Zovish let the sensor tracker rest on his side with the shoulder strap. He tried moving the second hatch and it opened inward towards him opposite of the previous hatch with Cashil it swung open form the top with relative ease. Zovish took out his own hand lamp and shown it past the second hatch to look inside. His vision was partially obscured by more webbing. He tore it down with his alternate flipper and stepped inside.

Inside the next chamber Zovish looked down and saw small round spheres in piles. The spheres were dark gray and about the size of a human fist. He assumed they were eggs from the piles and the shells of some of them cracked open. His eyes tracked the hand lamps light as he slowly moved it past the piles of sphere shaped eggs to a large metal plate sticking a half meter out from the side of the wall and a set of controls running down the side. The controls display were totally dark with no power so it wasn't the source of the signal.

From behind him Lieutenant Cashil stepped through the hatch holding her hand lamp's light on the eggs. Her eyes widened as she pulled out her blaster. “M--, maybe we should go.” She said starting to get anxious at the sight of the piles of spheres. Zovish didn't respond as he turned to the right and took a few steps he replied “The signal is from here somewhere.” Cashil stepped in a few steps after Zovish and kept the light down at the spheres “Are these eggs?”.

Zovish didn't reply instead he walked around the plate with dead controls making sure his feet overstepped the piles of fist sized eggs. As soon as he cleared the deck plating he stood still. From behind him Lieutenant Cashil whispered out to him. “What is it?”

Lieutenant Zovish stood there frozen as he realized what he was seeing. A pair of pilot chairs turned sideways still bolted to the side of the wall that as now he understood was originally a floor. The control panel was similar to the one he had stepped around. It stood in front of the pilot chairs a moderate sized rectangle area that Zovish assumed had been the main view port was now stuffed with dirt from the outside pushing into the cockpit. On the control panel nearly all of the controls and displays were darkened without power except for a small blinking indicator near what had been the far left side of the panel and now was near the ceiling.

The blinking light wasn't a surprise to Zovish. He expected to see some form of signal being transmitted from here but seeing a pair of control yokes set between the two chairs made him realize what he was inside. “I think we're--”

Just then above control yokes the dirt in the view port started to sift and slowly small holes opened. Zovish shone his light on the dirt quickly as dozens of small arachnid like creatures emerged squalling and hissing and starting to traverse down the dirt into the cockpit.
Zovish tried to take steps back quick and bumped into Cashil who had come around the plate in the middle of the room to inquire what he was seeing. Zovish just screamed as he backed into her “Run NOW!”

Zovish didn't bother not disturbing the eggs piles as he turned and run back past the control plating obscuring Lieutenant Cashil's view. He shoved her back into the hatchway as he turned and un-holstered his blaster. Zovish pointed down as the fist sized creatures scurried towards them and fired multiple shots scoring a few but only holding back the rest of the small horde. Cashil yelped as she almost fell back into the darkened mud of the causeway and saw Zovish open fire at the small creatures “What are they!?” Zovish jumped back shouting “Don't know! Don't care!”

By now Lieutenant Cashil had her own blaster out and opened up a few bots at the ground sizzling some of the horde of creatures near Zovish. As Zovish fell backwards through the hatchway Cashil ran up slamming the circular hatch shut. The sound of the creatures jumping on the hatch and pressing into it could be heard as they scraped the opposite side of the door.

One of the small arachnids made it past the hatch's door as Cashil closed it and turned hissing at her. A second later a red blaster bolt burned directly into the creature blowing it into pieces. Cashil looked back at Zovish holding his blaster pistol. “Thanks.” Cashil said breathing fast from the excitement. “Don't mention it. Can you lock the hatch?” Zovish said as he ran towards Cashil and put his weight onto the circular hatch as well. Cashil held a flipper with her foot against the hatch as she reach for her hand lamp laying in the dark watery mud and picked it up to shine light on the hatch. “I think the manual lock is around here somewhere.” Cashil said moving her flipper to the top of the circular doorway “Got it!” She said as she opened a mud covered access panel revealing a dusty latch lock handle inside. She shoved the small handle up into the ceiling of the causeway locking the door.

Zovish's breathing had returned to normal as he slowly tested moving from the circular hatchway door “Let's get out of here.” he said. Cashil nodded in agreement Sounds good, whoever thought to put an emergency lock on the ceiling in whatever this thing is.” Zovish's wide mouth gave a half chuckle “It's an overturned AT-AT. That was the command cockpit.” he proclaimed. Cashil didn't let the comment sit she shot back “Then we're in the neck?” Zovish nodded “Correct. Let's get back out the hole we made.” Cashil let a long sigh of relief out “Best idea I've heard all day.”

Zovish walked to the open circular hatchway where they had come from which he thought meant they entered through a maintenance door or equipment loading door to the main cargo area of the overturned walker. He stopped short. The fading moonlight came through the square hole they opened in the roof of the compartment they first entered and landed upon a large arachnid creature. Easily twice the size of a human it was facing opposite of the circular hatch to the AT-AT's neck area where Cashil and Zovish were.

The massive dark colored creature had large dark fur colored rear abdomen and a much smaller thorax. A second later the creature stiffened and turned on it's massive spidery legs towards Zovish. The head of the creature was much like a spider in shape but instead of a multitude of eyes a large red eye was centered above a fanged mouth and drooling mouth.

Zovish in a panic slammed the circular hatch back shut as the large arachnid leaped at him. The force from the creature landing on the hatch as Zovish tried to hold it shut Jolted him hard as he almost fell backwards “Ahhhh! Help!” he screamed. Cashil ran through the soft blackened sludge in the causeway to help Zovish hold the hatch down as the large arachnids' legs tried to dart and spear from under the pressure hatch's opening. After a second more Cashil took her blaster and aimed it under the circular hatch and opened a volley of blaster fire. As she did the creature retracted a moment allowing Zovish to close the door and then use the manual lock found in a similar location as the cockpit's hatch. As it locked in place the creatures legs could be heard smashing into the circular door which was now started to bend inward from the onslaught. Cashil's large mon calamari eyes went wide “That wont that hold it!” Zovish turned and shouted with fear “No. We need out of here! Fire your weapon straight up!”

As he said the words Zovish pointed his DL-44 blaster pistol and unleashed a volley on the roof of the causeway they were in. Cashil took her own DH17 and fired at the same spot as him. A moment later the roof of the causeway caved in with dirt and hot metal from continuous laser fire.

It wasn't a moment too soon as just as the roof caved in the hatch door started to give way from the barrage of strikes the arachnid creature was hitting it with its long thick spear shaped legs “Move!” Zovish yelled putting his hands around Cashil's waist and hoisting her up to the opening “I know!” She acknowledged and reache to the still hot blasted opening the pair and made and pulled herself up through it.

Zovish pushed Cashil's feet through the opening in the roof and jumped himself grabbing the hot edge of the metal hole he and Cashil had just created. As he started hoisting himself up Zovish heard the circular hatch door give way and the huge arachnid start hissing as it entered the AT-AT's neck. Zovish pulled his legs up just as a pair of the creature's long spear tipped legs clawed at his own legs as he cleared the newly made hole. “Down now!” Cashil yelled as she jumped from the rock like structure. Zovish followed a millisecond later leaping through the the cool night air as well. The pair of them landed hard in the grass. As Cashil landed she rolled but Zovish came down hard and yelled as his leg twisted in the grass. “C'mon we got to go now!” Cashill yelled as the sounds of the arachnid's hissing and metal scraping from the top of the rock formation could be heard. Zovish rolled  over and sat up “Keep moving! Don't wait for me!” he exclaimed.

Cashil started to protest when more hissing sound was heard from the top of the rock formation. The arachnid creature had pulled it's massive body up to put it's head through the hole the pair of pilots blasted out of. The rocks around the hole started to move up ward as the creature strained to pull it's large abdomen through. Lieutenant Cashil pointed her blaster and shot a few well aimed shots at the beast using the last of the moonlight. The blaster bolts hit the monsters legs and head as it was trying to pull through the hole but the shot's had little effect against it's hard chitinous covered abdomen. A moment later the rocks near the center of the formation a bit further down from the square hatch on the topside Cashil started to sift and move. Cashil turned to Zovish and pulled him up.

“Let's go! We're not going to stop it!” Cashil yelled. Zovish stood up limping and trying to get moving “I'm trying! We have to get to the fighters!” Then as if the large slug shaped rock formation had been awoken from all areas of it shifting rocks slowly lifted like a huge door. Inside the hissing sounds of more of the creatures could be heard. As the pair of pilots ran for their ships the huge square door of the side of the AT-AT creaked open enough for a half dozen of the creatures to rush out hissing and skittering along the grass and dirt. Cashil looked back as she ran towards her Y-wing “It has friends!”

A few seconds later the pair had made it to the grassy area they had landed their Y-Wings. Cashil ran to hers and started jump on the fuselage of her fighter before she remembered Zovish was hurt and turned to check on him. “Didn't get back a moment too soon!” He said putting his flippers up to his the fuselage. “Can you get in yours?!” She yelled over at him. Zovish turned and nodded “Yea I'll be fine! Get your's started to use your top guns on th-...” Zovish cut his words off quickly as a huge arachnid's silhouette rose from the the back fuselage of the Y-wing where the pair of engines attached. It spewed a long string of web at him catching his torso. “Ahhh! G-...” Zovish turned as the webbing knocked him off the cockpit fuselage back to the grass. “Percy!” Cashil screamed out. She hopped in her cock pit and powered up the top gun. The arachnid sucked the webbing back towards itsel and used its long spear like legs to impale Zovish like prey on the sharp legs. The creature tore Zovish's arm from his torso as he tried to resist in a futile effort. The next second the beast pulled his now still torso to its multi eyed head and opened it fang filled mouth as it started to devour his other shoulder and torso.

Cashil sat screaming as the guns read online and turned them to fire on the beast. The shots had some effect as the bolts burned into the beasts torso but did little to it's legs holding the corpse of her friend. The Y-wing powered to full as she sank into her cock pit quickly and lifted off.

The half dozen arachnid creatures coming from the rock formation had arrived in time to try and leap at Cashil's Y-Wing as it rose from the ground. One landed on her fighters nose plunging it's legs deep into the metal hull. It hissed at her trying to pull it's large abdomen onto the fighter. Cashil opened up her fighters front pair of blasters and after a volley it blew the arachnid off of it. To her horror the creature landed and seemed wounded but limped back towards the rocks. The rest continued to spew webbing at Cashil's ascending Y-Wing until she engaged her engines and pulled free.

Cashil pursed her mon calamari lips tight in anger remembering her friend still down there dead and being consumed. She banked her Y-Wing around and turned it around staying high hoping it was out of the creature's web range. She came over the rest of the arachnids now heading back to the rock formation. Cashil aimed her canons and opened up her pair of front lasers on the remaining creatures to avenge her friend.

The strafing hit three of the monsters. Two of which were hit multiple times, only one fell to the ground dead. The other two limped along with the others. Cashil decided she wasn't going to let any get away. Not now not after what they did to her friend. She banked around for another strafe run but as she opened up her blasters she noticed the power in her banks had dropped considerably. Then her early alarm on her fuel started going off. Cashil pulled up from her second strafe run and reviewed her blaster control's readings gritting her teeth as she said aloud “What in the name of? They were over half full when I took off.”

Cashil was unsure why her fighter's fuel and blasters power were lower then originally thought but it meant she would have to leave now to make it back safely home. Solemn and angry she turned her fighter back towards the Northeast and set a course for the Riptide.

[Tamer]

Off to share the new chapter!

[Rezikai]

Morning breaks over the continent.

The night's sky started to slowly burn away as the sun started to rise over the planet Aranea. Most of the nightmarish creatures that filled the shadows of the continent were retreating back to their lairs to avoid the suns hot rays. The warm feeling of the morning sun on her skin made Lieutenant Triton start to stir.

Her mind still only half conscious she kept her eyes closed as her thoughts drifted to her past. Her mind traveled back to her time as a child being raised with her uncle learning to pilot craft early on. She learned everything she could get her hands on. From land or air speeders to speeder bikes to swoops, skyhoppers and even an old Z-95 headhunter her uncle had owned. Her mind drifted to a mental image of him. He was a such a great man. She never knew her parents that well. They were killed in an accident when she was barely six years old. She was raised by her Mother's brother. Uncle Hestem or Big Hes, as many in the taverns called him. She loved his large round face and gruff appearance. He had bad health issues and with the Empire taking more and more resources work was sparse. When he was removed from his mining job near Gorse he took it hard. Eventually trying odd jobs for little pay.

Aerrel felt terrible being a burden on him even if Hes would never see it that way. She decided to leave home at fifteen to find work to help pay for her uncle's rising medical needs. However most of the outer rim wanted her for whore houses and dancing jobs for a girl with little to no experience. Aerrel found it too difficult trying to pass off as an adult to those that needed adults and tried to avoid those that wanted to pay her to look more like a child. She shivered at the thought of those days.

Triton's mind traveled to the thoughts of the Empire when they came looking for pilots and she got into the small Imperial pilot academy on Falshir. After a few attempts at lying about her age to join she was accepted. If only she had known about Uncle Hes's condition during her second semester, he lost his battle with his disease and was dead and cremated before she even found out. She had nothing to go back to then. Later Aerrel's secret about being under age was found out, she winced thinking about the unsavory things she had to do to keep her secret about her age safe. The things she did with the instructors who were twice her age made her feel all the more worthless. It made her remember why she left the Empire.

The unsavory memories of that past life helped bring her back to her current life. The rebels she met during the academy and later joining the them after her deployment on Gall went from sour and depressing to horrific.

The rebels reminded her much of herself, misfits and outcasts from society now struggling to survive. She had been with them only a few months after the evacuation of their main base on Hoth. Aerrel wanted to make an impression so she signed up for the most dangerous missions and requested the most combat expectant assignments. She was eager to show what she could do and it payed off with more and more victories for the Alliance. Then came the battle of Endor where the second dreaded Death Star was being constructed. Her thoughts flashed through the battle the mass of Tie fighters filling her scopes. During the battle she was recalled back to Riptide at Commander Dryce's orders. She didn't know why but by then the half finished Death Star was destroyed as well as the imperial super star destroyer. The route of imperial forces was on and it was a clear and solid defeat for the imperial starfleet. Aerrel's mind slowly started to think of more recent events. Of Riptide's crash on this strange world and later of... of her reconnoiter mission and later her... her... crash...at the last thought her eyes sprang open.

Lieutenant Triton scanned her surroundings, she was still in her cockpit of the A-Wing. The canopy was cracked with large areas of the viewer glass torn away. The fighter's controls were all dark and the right side of the cockpit had been crushed inward pinching against Aerrel's legs. She tried to rise up quickly but the pain in her left leg stopped her in motion and she settled back into her grav couch. Aerrel looked up beyond the shattered cockpit to see a forested trees canopy blocking most of the suns rays. She remembered chasing after the Tie fighter from the battle over Riptide but her mind was hazy after that. Had she been shot down from behind?

Aerrel clicked her helmets comm-link to try and transmit but like nearly everything else in the cockpit it was dead. She took off her green flight helmet and let her golden bangs fall over her brow and ears. For a moment she reminded herself she needs a haircut. A second later she twisted her legs out of the crushed side of the A-wing's cockpit and rose herself up slowly. She could see a wound on the side of her leg that looked like shrapnel had blown up from below into her cockpit and into her thigh and calf muscle. She winced as she spoke aloud to herself “Not the smoothest landing ever I must say. Unnngh...”

Aerrel grunted trying to hoist herself out of the cockpit and pushed up on the canopy. After a moment it finally popped open and she crawled out of the fighter onto the forest floor and lay there feeling her leg aching. She turned to look at her craft, its left side more intact side was buried deep almost to the edge of the canopy. The right side looked like she flew it through a bomb. The entire right side from the nose going back to the gun and starboard engine assembly looked to have been torn into shreds the fact the cockpit was still intact was a miracle. Had her fighter landed on its right side then the left she would have been crushed like an eggshell. On the A-wing's starboard engine tail fin which protruded out of the ground the furthest was coated in a strange green ooze seeping down the side of her crashed fighters tail assembly panels. Which had started to garner Triton's attention when something else caught her eye.

Behind the fighter she noticed something. Rather she noticed something not there, as in her skid track. Normally when a fighter crashes soft enough for a survivor there's churned up earth on the ground and grass or whatever happens to be on the deck when said fighter comes in for a hard landing.

Aerrel's fighter hadn't one. She looked up and saw the tops of the trees behind her fighter had been torn and severed off. She realized that's what softened her crash.  She paused to try and raise herself up but stopped as she looked up and noticed a large amount of webbing in the tree tops. “Hmmm, not sure I want to be here if whatever made that comes back to check and see if I'm alive.” she thought to herself.

As the words parted Aerrel's mouth the sounds of branches breaking was heard high through the trees in the distance. Then a low toned whine came from that direction before a large dark object fell through the smaller lower branches and impacted the forest floor about 60 meters behind her fighters crash point.

Triton reach for her blaster but noticed her holster empty. She had left it in the cockpit. She tried to stand but the pain in her bleeding leg prevented it so she scooted on her butt back to the cockpit and leaned in grabbing into the cockpit's depths until she felt her blaster's handle. As Aerrel pulled it free she heard a low shriek from the falling objects direction accompanied by the sounds of branches of trees being broken and thrown around. The shriek grew faint and the thrashing sounds slowly quieted. After a minute or two the sounds ended. Triton assumed it was a creature of some sort and by the way the noises faded away she hoped it was no longer part of the realm of the living.

Aerrel waited a moment to make sure, before pulling herself up and slowly limping over to the area where the noises where with her blaster in hand and ready in case of trouble or the creature not entirely dead. She was relieved and let out a long sigh when she came into a small cluster of saplings and saw the remains of the large beast and knew it was dead. The large arachnid creature had landed on one side with four of its long spear head tipped legs curled under what was left of it's abdomen, which was cut nearly in half and had a huge chunk missing from it's side along with whatever legs had been attached under that section of it's missing body. The multi eyed beast lay over on its torn and shredded remains and oozed out a green liquid that Aerrel assumed was it's lifeblood. After a few seconds to make sure the creature wasn't hostile she scanned the forest canopy to insure no more were in the trees above her as she turned and made her way back to her crashed fighter.

Triton's leg was still seeping blood. She leaned back into her half turned over A-wing and pulled out the first aid kit and started to fashion a crude bandage and injected her leg with anesthetic to keep the pain down. Triton looked back at the direction of the dead creature thinking it wasn't as big and mean as it seemed.

Triton realized her fighter must have collided with it as she crashed and torn part of it's massive body off. She turned to see her A-Wing's engines assembly and on the left engines tail fin was a coating of the same greenish blood splattered all over it. “It was still moving even after I slammed into it?”

After Aerrel spoke to herself she opened the med kit and quickly gave herself an aneth-shot and started to clean and tie up the tear across her lower thigh. For a while there was no noise which made Triton even more fearful. She finished patching up her wounds and looked around for a large piece of tree branch or metal for a crutch. Most of the tree branches were too small or too weak. She did however manage to pull off a section of the rear tail fin that had sliced open the arachnid beast during impact. It was long enough for a crutch and sturdy enough. Lieutenant Triton pulled off part of the grav-couch so the crutch would have a soft end for under her arm, as she started to tie on the piece of cushion from the grav-couch she noticed a lot of the green blood was still on the piece of metal. She thought about cleaning it off but decided the pain in her leg was foregoing anything else but getting the weight off of it. She finished rigging the crutch and tested it.

Aerrel took a few steps she was pleased with her work. She reach in her fighters cock pit for the survival kit in case she was on the ground for an extended time. She hoped her comrades were on their way but with as much time as had already passed it's possible they think she's KIA or out of range for a pick up. She rummaged around and found her spare her comm-link hoping for a sign of friendlies. She click it to an open channel and began to try and transmit. “This is SPEAR to the Kitchen come in please.” But her attempt was met with static. Frantically she tried again “This is SPEAR to Kitchen requesting pick up at this transmissions' coordinates, please respond.” But again she was met with static. She continued for twenty more minutes before giving up on any reply. She hoped the Riptide's crew heard her and couldn't respond or just didn't have the ability to reply. Aerrel became slightly depressed then took a long deep breathe as she tried to get upright with her newly crafted crutch.

Triton had expected as much but hoped for the best. She had been in worse situations she told herself. This to shall pass. She let a slight smile creep across her lips as she had her sobering thoughts.

As she smiled she heard another tree branch further away snap. She wasn't sure if it was part of the same lot the creature came from or if it was one of it's friends. She decided it was time to make her way out of the area as fast as possible and not bother finding out.

---------------



Riptide's crash site...



It was early in the morning hours when Captain Barrax awoke from the small bit of sleep he had gotten. His senses were too on edge from the previous night's raid. Barrax sat up from the small moist mat on the floor of the small cave junction he had used as a resting place. He gave a slight smile at the moisture deep in the cave that kept his skin from drying out overnight. Normally Mon Calamari's have to keep themselves moisturized regularly to keep from serious skin damage when outside of aquatic atmospheres.

Barrax reach over and grabbed the comm-link from the small rock he placed beside his mat and clicked it on. “This is Barrax, status report commander.” From the other end Commander Shellish's voice crackled through “You were only asleep for maybe two hours sir.” Barrax gave a slight frown with his mon calamari mouth at the comm-link after Shellish's reply. “Your concern for my health is comforting to know yet not needed Commander. What's our evaluation of the damage and battle preparedness?” Shellish's voice came through in a more professional tone after Barrax's brush back “Moderate damage to some of the refueling equipment and five casualties to the maintenance crew. They were awaiting Blue Squadron's return for refuel and re-prep when the Imps hit and strafed us.". Barrax let his large eyes wince slightly as he replied “Hmm, they must have thought most of us were still in the ship.”. “Seems so, we were lucky.” Shellish replied. “Lucky would be if they didn't hit anything Commander. What of LONGSPEAR?” Barrax ordered back through the com-channel. Shellish's voice sounded a bit crestfallen “Still no word yet Captain.” Barrax started to stand up grunting from the uncomfortable cave floor as he did “Hmmm it's well overdue. Either Endor reheated up or it was taken.” Shellish's unsurprised voice came back through the channel “Possibly sir. We know the Imps were moving to fall back positions. It's feasible an admiral with too much pride rallied a few ships to try and make a counter strike.” Barrax started to pull his tunic on and fastened it as he retorted “Possible but unlikely. What's the status of our umbrella cover?” Shellish's voice chimed up slightly at the question “Still up, sir Lt. Cashil returned from the Clarion's pods run just a few minutes with disturbing information.” Barrax quickly replied “Regarding the Imps commander?” Barrax finished dressing but couldn't locate his pair of white boots he had taken off before sleeping. He looked around blinking his large mon cala eyes thinking to himself he had put them at the end of the mat before he went to sleep he thought. After a few seconds Shellish's voice came back through the channel “Err, n-no sir it's regarding the wildlife of the planet it appears dangerous.” Barrax gave a frustrated grunt at hearing the news and still looking for his boots. “I'll be there in two minutes Commander. I want Flight Leader Vorm informed of the small snoop run we set up last evening after the imps hit us. Barrax out.” He barked in frustration. As Barrax keyed the com-link closed Shellish's voice muttered a “Yes sir.” before a zzzzt sound indicated the channel ended.

Captain Barrax stood dressed in his uniform circling around looking for his boots on when he turned inward towards the cavern's deeper interior and saw the faintest of white objects at deeper in the cave where his small survival lamps light started to fade and be overtaken by the darkness of the cavern. Barrax had taken the deepest possible cave for his rest area and wondered if he had kicked the pair of boots when he was asleep and sent them tumbling. It wasn't an issue he was going to spend time no now, he thought to himself. Barrax walked to the object and reach down picking it up and it was indeed one of his boots. He cursed and looked deeper into the cavern.  He could see it stretched out further and started to widen out.

Barrax walked further back trying to adjust his eyes and as he stepped a few steps into the darkness he saw the white outline of his other boot laying against the cavern wall where the cave widened out. Barrax walked over to it and spoke to himself “How hard could I have kicked them I wonder.” As the words left his mouth he reach down and picked it up to find it covered in a white webbing that was sticky and stretching to his flippers grasping at it to tear it from his boot. A moment later he had it freed and slid it on. “Enough of this now we--” Barrax's words froze as his large mon calamari eyes detected movement in the darkened cavern. He froze trying make the shape out of the darkness but instinctively took a step backward. As he did he felt something hit his abdomen. He put his flippers on his chest to find it was more of the sticky webbing clinging to him and now sticking his arms to his chest. As he started to yell another stream of the webbing hit his face and eyes. He turned trying to run but with a sudden forceful yank he was pulled back into the darkness of the cavern...

-----

The morning's sun felt warm over Flight Commander Vorm's aquatic skin. He had been up all night going over post battle analysis reports and trying to piece together where he could try to make adjustments with the small compliment of fighters he had left. Normally the Riptide would carry other support craft and shuttles but because the Endor assault was so risky it was deemed safer to leave it behind should the attack fail and the Alliance ships captured.

Vorm had a feeling of dread come over him. He had just finished reading Lieutenant Cashil's report of the Clarion survivor's search and the subsequent incident at the cave with the creatures that slain Lieutenant Zovish. He winced Zovish was an elder of the squad and everyone thought he would make it through to the end of this war. Especially with the Emperor and the new Death Star gone, but to die on the ground and in that way was terrifying to the mon calamari pilot. As Vorm was going over the reports his comm link crackled on with the voice of Commander Shellish. “Commander Vorm come in please.” Vorm reach his wrist pad to his wide mon calamari mouth and replied “Vorm here.”. “Commander, we're going to be needing you and some of your people for a mission Captain Barrax wants you to complete. I wanted to give you an early warning so you could prepare.”. Vorm gave a tired response to Shellish's more professional tone “With respects the Captain does understand our serious under supplied situation?” “He does, however it supersedes that.” Shellish replied with a slightly annoyed tone. Vorm gave a sigh under his voice as he spoke back into the comm-link “I,... see. Send it through.” Shellish's voice seemed to be tired of the conversation “He set it up last evening after the attack. I was just trying to be courteous.” Vorm gave a slight frown to his mon calamari mouth as he retorted “How polite you are.” Shellish just replied in a curt “Shellish out.” before the channel went dead.

Vorm sat a moment in his chair in the small cave now being used as a the pilots bunk. He and most of his Mon Cala pilots were glad to be in a more moist atmosphere but still, he wished he and his squadron would be given a chance to use the cave  at least a few times before the rescue shows up. His thoughts changed from the cave to Shellish's tone in his message. “That fool.” Vorm thought to himself.

Vorm and Shellish had long standing disagreements on fighter use during deployments and how they can best be effective. Fortunately Captain Barrax had agreed with Vorm more often then not and it still upset Shellish who was looking to make more of a name for himself in the alliance forces. He read over the mission parameters as they came in to his terminal. After a few seconds of reading Vorm raised his webbed hands into the air in disbelief “They can't be serious!”

---------------



Nektulos Forest...




The sun was raising higher into the sky when Lieutenant Vanders turned to look at it. He had awoken hours before in the cockpit of his wrecked Tie fighter hanging precariously in the treetops near the bottom of the mountain where the rebel ship had crashed. He had popped the hatch and slowly climbed out of his wrecked fighter. Then slowly and carefully climbed down from the tree tops. When he reach the forest floor he noticed the small flecks of light starting to come through the forest canopy as dawn began.

Vanders remembered the idiocy of his maneuver and cursed under his breath. He tried to contact the rally point from his suit's comm-link but it had been damaged in the crash. He checked his side arm to make sure it wasn't damaged and started his slow trek back across the continent. He was unsure if he could reach or even find the rally point. Best he could really hope for was for a flying ship to see him and do a pick up. After more then a few minutes of trekking over the forest floor he stared to feel the sun's rays over his pressure suit “So hot.” he murmured to himself.

Vanders had kept on his helmet so his respirator could filter out anything harmful from the planets atmosphere. But his suits cooling circuits had been damaged and were unable to activate. He tugged his at his flight suit trying to get relief. Vanders had took a second to play with the idea of removing it. In a more familiar environment he wouldn't care to strip down in the morning heat. But the sobering though of being in enemy territory and on an unfamiliar planet kept his adventurous thoughts at bay.

As Vanders trudged through the forest floor he heard a myriad of creatures either returning to sleep for the daylight or just awakening. It was getting close to mid-day before he finally risked taking off of his helmet. While the fear of airborne allergens had concerned him the hunger in his stomach was overtaking it. Unlike transport escorts or patrols where pilots would bring ration kits or protein packs this was a combat mission so he had brought neither. As he was reaching up to remove his helmet a crackle came through his comm-link's receiver. It surprised him because he had assumed when he couldn't transmit that he was no longer receiving as well.

(Commlink reception)-..xXxXxXx .***oO0Oo .. ****ear.. . oO0Oo ..  .*his...***xXxXxXx ..***** oO0Oo .. ***ease. .. oO0Oo ..xXxXxXx .. .. oO0Oo ..***ting.... ..**oO0Oo*or ..**ear .. ..***ance.... oO0Oo

Lt. Vander's transfixed the transmission from somewhere to the southwest. He had been trekking a northwestern direction in a futile attempt to reach the rally point but perhaps one of his team had survived or possibly it was Banshee 2. He remembered ordering Lt. Faraday back to base during the raid but he was severely damaged. Perhaps he didn't make it all the way back. Vanders took a deep breath and started towards the direction of the transmission. He needed to make sure he wasn't leaving someone behind. Not like Endor, not again.

---------------



Kumo Crash Site...



More and more the creaking of metal and the occasional muffled cry of a human was heard through the pitch black interior of the Kumo. Lieutenant Sylvon and Specialist Raem had kept the use of the hand lamp to a minimum as to not attract undo attention to themselves. They were closing in on the upper hangar of their formerly space worthy ship. Now they are just wishing to escape as fast as possible. Raem mumbled in a tired strained voice “If decks eleven through eighteen hadn't been crushed we would have been there by now.” To his left and a half body length ahead of him Lieutenant Sylvon marched on without turning to look at him. “Such things are expected after a landing like this Specialist.” She replied. Raem had his gaze at the slight outline of her body in the darkness as he replied “Apologies Lieutenant, I'm just a bit anxious to get away from those monsters.” Sylvon again didn't turn towards him and gave a sobering reply “As am I. We should be to the upper hangars midship entrance soon. Around one or two more corridors by my count.” Raem gave a sigh “Good, I've been wanting to see the sky aga--” “Shush! Be quiet!” Sylvon ordered from under her breath.

Specialist Raem stopped his words instantly as Sylvon crouched over in a prone position. Sylvon crept up on the upcoming turn in the hallway and edged her head to the bulkhead to get a view of what was laying ahead. She slowly drew her head back and crept back away from the turn in the deck. Raem was down in a prone position scanning the corridor's rear to make sure nothing was behind them. A second later Sylvon had returned to him. “Looks like our luck is about up. There's at least a pair of those arachnid things moving around in the darkness just up ahead.” Raem's voice went from quiet to a whisper “We should go. We won't be able to make it out this way.” Sylvon balled her hand into a tight fist and leaned her chin on it then spoke as if in angered thought “The upper hangar's mid-ship entrance was just beyond the pair of beasts...” Raem reach a hand and touched her arm to get her attention towards him “Sir, you don't plan to try and get past them? We'd be snatched up and ripped to pieces almost instantly.” Sylvon's brow while not visible furrowed and Raem could hear the frustration in her voice when Sylvon spoke again “Well no, but maybe if we could make a distraction.” Raem gave a quiet sigh and spoke “It's a possibility but we'd have to get both of them with it.” he said as he slowly released his grip on Sylvon's arm. The darkness cloaked her other arm's movements but had Raem not let go he was about become the distraction for the beasts as her opposite hand was almost to his neck in the darkness. When Raem let go she pulled her reaching arm back and then started to speak when small muffled footsteps started coming closer from behind them in the corridor they had previously been in. Raem turned his blaster towards the darkness but Sylvon grabbed his weapon and lowered it. “No, don't. Those footsteps aren't the beast's.” She said with a quick whisper.

Sylvon moved backwards past Raem as the footsteps crept closer. She motioned him to follow her as they backtracked into the corridor. As they crept back Sylvon found a small computer terminal alcove and ducked into it and crouched down making herself near invisible in the darkness. Raem followed by doing the same crouching next her, waiting for whoever came walking past. To Sylvon's dismay it was a shadowy figure of a man in a black body glove with another man draped over him. She held in her disgust of seeing the Rebel corporal and his commander still unconscious hanging over his shoulder. Sylvon waited a few seconds for them to pass by as did Raem, when the rebel carrying his friend trudged by they turned toward the same corridor Sylvon and Raem had just came from. The rebel moved through the darkened corridor with a small surgical light that is normally used to view inside dark areas of a humanoid. But Corporal Smoldz has been inventive enough to find one in the med-bay and use it as a tiny light to guide him on his journey through the Kumo's hulk.

Smoldz turned the corner of the hallway out of sight from Sylvon and Raem a moment later they heard a terrifying scream and a few thunks on the ground. Raem stood up as did Sylvon when the pair heard Smoldz start yelling and saw him rounding the corner from which he came in a full sprint towards Sylvon and Raem. Behind him one of the large arachnid creatures followed in a staggered motion. Raem stood there frozen as to not attract the attention of Smoldz or the beast but Smoldz ran into the alcove colliding with Raem head on. A moment later the beast was in front of the alcove thrusting it's remaining razor sharp legs at Smoldz. Sylvon who had been a few feet away from Raem on adjacent side of alcove was now raising for her weapon to open up on the beast. Raem shouted “This fool ran into us! Kill it!”

A flurry of shots opened up from Sylvon hitting the beast directly in its head and eyes. Raem followed suit raising his blaster and opening up underneath of the beast as he lay on his back. Smoldz turned and swiped at the beasts legs with what appeared to be a medical laser scalpel, hacking a chunk the end of a leg off. The chunk of leg clanked to the floor and came to a rest near Sylvon. She turned and yelled in the darkness towards Raem “Get out of here Specialist!”

At the moment Sylvon shouted at Raem Smoldz rolled out from under the beasts abdomen reaching up with his slicer and hacking off a much larger leg segment at the segment break. Smoldz pulled himself up just as Sylvon moved past him back into the original corridor she and Raem had let the rebel and his friend be ambushed in. Back in the darkened hall the second of the pair of beasts was gone no longer blocking the way to the upper hangar.

Lieutenant Sylvon flashed her lamp and waved her blaster in a circle motion towards Raem the few seconds it was on “Come on!” Raem slid out from under the beast's abdomen as Smoldz did but by now the creature was in a frenzy slashing at anything it could with its remaining legs catching Raem just behind the knee tossing him down the corridor near Sylvon. Sylvon shot another volley of laser fire into the back of the arachnid scorching it's back but having little effect on it's movement as it tried to turn itself to face her. Smoldz had ran back down the long entry corridor where he and the imperials had came from before.

The beast turned and stumbled towards Raem who was trying to pull himself up. His bag of weapons still draped over his shoulder. The arachnid beast shot a stream of webbing at Raem clinging him to the ground as Sylvon continued to fire bolts into the beasts body and legs. The beast heaved itself in an uncoordinated jump due to it's newly missing leg segments. It's body landed in front of Raem as he started to scream and reach for a new weapon from the bag. Just as he pulled the weapon from his satchel the beast bit down on his arm that held the weapon hard. Raem yelled in agony and in a fit of adrenaline pulled his arm free even though the creatures fangs tore deep gashes into his skin upon doing so.

Raem completed his rush of a movement by shoving his fist with weapon and all into the creatures mouth and started firing. The beast rocked back and forth as it felt the hot blasts of heat tear through it's innards. Unlike it's extremely tough chitinous covered abdomen the interior of the creature was soft and vulnerable. The beast fell back screeching in pain the ripped melted meat and bone that had once been part of Raem's arm inside the beasts mouth collapsed to the floor as Raem went silent and lay on the ground in short violent shakes as his body stared to be overtaken by the beasts venom.

Sylvon thought for a moment to reach for the satchel and rest of the power packs and Raem's weapon that wasn't dissolving as his flesh was. But instead remembered the creature screeching will draw others.

Just then from behind the flailing and shaking wounded arachnid Smoldz came running back around from his previous retreat and jumped onto the collapsed beast and cut a deep slash over it's face and eyes. The creature gave a lurch then fell dead. Smoldz leaped from the creatures head and landed near the body of Raem who had went into shock and was for all practical purposes a corpse from the venom entering his bloodstream. In the darkness Smoldz couldn't see much of Raem but he saw what he wanted. Raem's blaster that had been inside the satchel, it had came out when Raem was knocked to the floor causing him to reach for the other one.

Smoldz dropped the scalpel and knelt down as he felt for and recognized the blasters grip, picking it up. As he did he heard the sounds of foot falls down the rest of the corridor. Smoldz assumed that Sylvon no doubt seeing the rest of the corridor open ran for her own life. Smoldz didn't have time to continue thinking as the sounds of skittering legs on the deck plates could be heard getting louder as more of creatures were on the way. He had lost Glavyn to one of the pair who snatched him off his shoulder and pulled him deeper into the ship. Now he was on his own.

Sylvon dashed down the darkened corridors as she fled the from the danger behind her. She saw the small flecks of sunlight coming through the bent and twisted bulkheads in front of her and knew she was close to the hangar. As the light from the hangar started to bleed into the corridor it started to lighten her vision making the gruesome image of slaughtered survivors from the crash and cocooned bodies left for consumption later hanging from the beasts webbing on the twisted bulkheads. She ran full sprint for the the last turn to enter the hangar when she saw a huge round abdomen in front of her. Sylvon tried to slow herself but running that fast she fell and slid on her butt into the backside of one of the huge arachnids creatures.

Smoldz darted down the hallway quickly keeping Sylvon's footfalls just ahead. He assumed she would be moving to get out of this nightmare and she knew this ship better then he. As Smoldz ran into the darkness he tried to keep up with the sound of Sylvon's steps. Eventually he noticed it was getting easier to see the corridor's walls. He realized he was getting closer to the hangar and the outside.

Smoldz saw the light from the buckled deck floors start to peak through from the hangar and knew he was soon to be out of this nightmarish place. Just as Smoldz turned the corner he saw a huge arachnid creature skittering from side to side. He gasped and ducked back around the corner and ducked behind a small computer console. A second later the large creature had leaped around the corner looking for something “Did it hear me?” he thought. Smoldz stayed perfectly still trying not to be seen. The beast clicked its mandibles as it slowly crawled through the corridor trying to lure out it's prey. Smoldz kept himself frozen even as one of the beast's large segmented legs stepped right next to his leg as it past him. Smoldz inhaled slightly readying himself as the beast crept down the darker corridor. He knew he would have to act fast, as the beast slowly moved about ten meters down the corridor it slowed itself. He assumed it was about to turn and come back down the hall towards himself and the hangar. This would be his best chance and decided he had to take it.

Jumping out Smoldz leapt up and started his sprint all in one motion. The sound of his movements instantly garnered the arachnid creature's attention as it turned in a flurry and chased after him. Smoldz ran through the large square hangar entrance doors. He saw the early morning's light bathing the hangar in golden rays from the hangar's ceiling to the blue ocean waves far below. For a moment paused as he saw the long drop from the hangar to the water below in a frightened realization on how he could get down. He didn't have time to wait he told himself, a moment later the creature was turning the corner just behind him. Smoldz jumped from the edge of the hangar's walkway and dove towards the water. As he fell Smoldz expected to hit the water any second but after a few seconds of free fall Smoldz felt his hands barely reach into the warm ocean below then his motion snapped back. He looked up to see one of his legs and gripped in a sticky stringy material. “Aaaah what the!?” he shouted.

The beast above him at the edge of the hangar's walkway had shot it's webbing after him and snared one of his legs. He felt himself being drawn back up. The creature started pulling it's sticky rope of webbing using it's mandibles in a slow knitting motion pulling its prey back to it. Smoldz didn't have much time to think. He started to rock back and forth stretching and pulling his weight as the webbing started to pull against the creature's grip. The beast strained to keep it taught and quickly worked to secure it's hold on the webbing. The arachnid saturated the rope webbing to reinforce it as it continued to pull it towards the hangar. Smoldz now halfway back up the drop he had taken was swinging a considerable amount back and forth. He reach for the blaster he had hooked on his belt. Pulling the blaster up and fired at the monstrous spider recoiling him back up to be its morning meal. Most of Smold'z shots were off target only a pair hitting the beast in the leg and body which caused it no noticeable harm. His swinging had slowed as he was pulled closer to the lip of the hangar.

Smoldz thought for an instant “Maybe if I can sever the webbing here!” he reach and shot a bot of laser into the webbing on his leg burning a bit into it. His adrenaline pumped as he shot a second shot into the sticky rope of web. One more and he'd be free when another lance of webbing came down from above hitting his arm gripping the blaster. He didn't hesitate more then a half second and fired a third shot into the webbing burning through and releasing his leg. Smoldz's legs now free of the webbing dangled below him as he moaned from the weight of his body now being held by the sticky thick rope of webbing on his bicep and forearm pulling him closer to certain death. He tried to fire the blaster upward but the webbing had secured the blaster grip and barrel in place against his palm even when tried to pull it free with his other hand. Smoldz's mind raced he needed something, anything to fight off this beast when he gets close enough to its mandibles. Had he not dropped the surgical scalpel when he found the blaster in the dark he could at least try to use it against the beast getting closer. Smoldz checked his waist with his free hand to see maybe if he could get his belt loose and somehow whip it against the monster. Suddenly the upward motion stopped. Smoldz looked up to see the giant arachnid's attention was no longer focused on him and while still holding the webbing in it's mandibles was turning away to see behind itself showing him its large round body. Smoldz wasn't going to let the chance go by as he started to swing his weight again this time he was able to get close to the side hull of the Kumo's hangar. As the beast turned back around to put more force into pulling up it's prey Smoldz swung his weight until his feet stamped against the hangar's hull plating. He then took the webbing attached to his arm and yanked hard down. Smoldz doubted he could pull the large much heavier beast down but he thought perhaps it'd consider him too much trouble for a meal and give up.

The large arachnid hissed it's displeasure at feeling its webbing pulled on so hard and reinforced itself as it continued to pull up. All the while Smoldz pressing his weight into his legs and feet on the side of the hangar's hull pulling away as if repelling a mountain. Smoldz had about another twenty seconds before his arms and legs would give up against such a heavier opponent. He yanked again as the beast pulled him up now slower as he ground his feet into the hull for traction against it. By now the arachnid was so close it leaned over the edge and swiped at it's prey with its long deadly mandible. Smoldz did his best to dodge the beasts swipes as the large mandibles struck the hangar's hull and gashed into the metal.

Smoldz was out of time as another few seconds and he'd be in the beasts grasps. As the arachnid leaned over again he dug his heels in hard and yanked as forceful as he could. Just then the beast hissed as it jolted outward and tumbled facing up passed him. Instantly it let go of the grip on Smoldz's webbed arm and he started to free fall with the monster. The moment the beast fell into the morning sunlight it gave a great shriek as if scalded by the rays. It shot ropes of sticky webbing back upwards at it fell trying to latch on to the Kumo's keel. It connected all three times it shot it's webbing but the sheer weight of the beast snapped each rope of webbing only a second after it stuck. Finally the pair of them hit the warm water below. The arachnid flailed and splashed in the shallow cover of water as it tried to swim itself towards the shore. Smoldz was afraid that the monster would try and grab him again under water but the creature was in a state of panic in the the shallow bay's waves as if fighting for it's life.

Smoldz hit the water and let himself sink under water as he watched a moment and when he saw he was no longer the beasts interest he swam for the surface. He reappeared treading the water as best he could. Smoldz looked up to see if any others of it's kind were at the hangar about to shoot a rope of webbing to snag him as the first did but instead he saw someone dive into the water from the from the hangar as well. As Smoldz watched the person hit the water a shriek from behind him turned his attention toward the arachnid in the water.

As the creature splashed and sloshed itself towards shore. Surprisingly enough the beast reach shore in a considerable quick amount of time. Smoldz watched as it climbed onto the beach a decent distance well away from himself and stumbled in the sand turning in a circle before clamoring towards a jut of rocks. The arachnid ran towards the rocky outcropping and started tearing into the sand at the rock formations base with it's mandibles until a considerable hole was dug all the while hissing and shrieking occasionally before the hole was deep enough for to squeeze itself under out of the light.

Smoldz turned back to where the other person had dove in but no one had surfaced. He thought for a moment perhaps they hit wreckage under the waves and didn't survive the fall. “Good.” Smoldz thought to himself hoping it was the lieutenant he and his commander had met in the medical bay. A moment later he heard water splash towards the beach towards the north of him. He knew it wasn't the arachnid as it had hid under rocks more towards the south and he could make out the dark shape of its abdomen in the small amount of shade in the distance. No this was the other diver. When he swam closer he saw it was indeed the lieutenant that had tortured him in the med-bay. She walked out of the water holding her boots and top to her uniform under her arm. A moment later she turned towards the water as if watching Smoldz treading towards the shoreline.

Lieutenant Sylvon walked from the water as small waves moved along the beach. She turned and tipped her boots over letting the water fall out of them. Smoldz's mind burned seeing her. He turned back towards the arachnid hoping it would try and shoot a rope of webbing for her even though she was quite a ways away. But the beast instead continued to slowly lurch and shuffle back and forth under the outcropping of rocks to continue sinking itself under the sand into the small amount of shade no longer worried about it's lost prey.

Sylvon sat down for a moment looking at the jut of rocks the arachnid hid itself under. Sylvon theorized the beasts were night hunters but wondered if the rays of sun actually hurt them. She turned her attention back to the human in the water who was coming ashore in a slow pace. She winced in disgust at the young man making his way towards the shoreline. As he reach the edge of the land he fell to his knees. Sylvon noticed the blaster was still in his hand as he crawled onto the beach. The man fell forward and laid face down on the pale off-white sand as his body heaved with labored breath.

Sylvon stretched out her uniform on the warm sand as she slid on her boots. She put her boots on not turning away from the man in the sand nor the beast hidden under the rocks much further past him along the southern section of shoreline. A moment later she had her other boot on and reach down to get her wet uniform top. As she did she looked up to see the young man start to stand up in the sand, as she rose up with her uniform top the young rebel had risen to his feet and started towards her.

Sylvon crooked an eyebrow at the young man, wondering what his intentions were. The young man strode up until he was about three meters from Sylvon. She kept silent and opened her uniform and and slid her arms through the sleeves. “Yes, corporal?” Sylvon said as if loathing the fact she used the man's rank out of force of habit. Smoldz was tired and stood with his weight on one leg as he as he raised his web covered arm with the blaster still firmly in hand. He looked at Sylvon and spoke “Your're not going anywhere. You going to die and I'm going to be the one to ki-” Just as Smoldz was speaking Sylvon rushed him knocking the aim of the blaster's barrel away from her and threw an elbow into Smoldz's chin. Smoldz grunted as he stumbled, Sylvon grabbed his blaster arm and raised it into the air as he pulled the trigger and a shot from it went past her cheek and flew into the sky. Smoldz gained his footing and as Sylvon grabbed him he lifted his knee and felt it register in her abdomen. Sylvon grunted and coughed feeling the taller and muscular man's knee hit her right in her bread basket. Sylvon cursed as she spun away and gave a high kick into Smoldz's face. Smoldz fell to the ground on his back, in an instant Sylvon was on top of him grabbing his blaster arm and punching his throat. Smoldz rolled over throwing Sylvon into the sand as she raised her knee aiming for his groin but missed hitting his hip as he rolled on top of her. Smoldz grabbed her throat with his free hand and pressed her hard into the sand while setting one of his thighs on her abdomen holding her down she clawed at his arm and shoulder as he held her squeezing her breath from her. Smoldz's grip was tiring as was Sylvon's engery and breath. Smoldz grunted and finally pushed the blaster still in his free hand to the side of her head. Sylvon felt the barrel against the temple of her head she grunted and yelled as Smoldz pulled the trigger. “Die!” he screamed and as the trigger was pulled Sylvon felt the barrel of the blaster stay dormant. It surprised Smoldz who pulled the trigger again and again with a surprised look on his face he he turned his gaze to the blaster and Sylvon saw her chance this time taking her hand and punching directly into Smoldz's groin and finding register. He tumbled over in pain and she jumped on him stomping his hand and pulling the blaster free from his hand as it was originally covered in webbing but the sand had been absorbed around it making the sticky substance much coarser. Sylvon pulled it free as Smoldz started to regain his strength and sat up reaching out grabbing Sylvon's thigh wrapping his long arm around her left thigh trying to raise her in the air and pull her down. Sylvon stumbled and pistol whipped the back of Smoldz's head sending him back to the sand unconscious. A moment later she sat back in the sand turning her gaze to the jut of rocks with the hiding arachnid and saw it still remained dormant. Sylvon's gaze turned toward the now bloodied Smoldz who had a bleeding tear on his skull just above his ear. Her thigh was hurting from the death grip Smoldz had it in and she squeezed it trying to massage the pain and sneering at Smoldz's unconscious body.

Lt. Sylvon looked up and down the beach for anything when she saw far in the distance the brown and gray outline of a parked speeder bike. For a moment Sylvon wondered if it had been damaged in the crash and was left but knew she had to check on it. She turned towards Smoldz who was starting to moan from the pain and stir. Slyvon reach down and grabbed the mans legs and pulled him down the sand bar until she got him within a few feet of the bike.

Sylvon looked the speeder bike over. It was still in good condition and even had a preset comm-channel on it set up for transmission. She keyed it on and tried to call out but received only static in return. She didn't find that surprising as she should have been back from dealing with the two rebel boarders last evening. “Kai hates losing anyone under his command.” Fortunately for her she thought as she started the bike's warm up ignition and reach into its survival pack on the back and found a long piece of secure-cord often used by maintenance techs to strap speeder bikes to decks or platforms of larger transports. In this case however Syvlon had other ideas.

[Tamer]

So gonna take some time over the holidays to catch up on this. Till then, off to share the latest chapter in all the right places.

[Rezikai]

ugh wait a few days before you read it Tamer... 3-5 hour writing sessions ending at... 7am in the morning mean massive typos lol. i'll try and clean it up over the next day or so.