The Rebel Faction

<b>A man on the Inside</b>

The man known as Vehlek exited a cubicle on the thirty-seventh floor of Hasbandi Inc Towers, a small diskey tucked securely in his breast pocket. He walked casually to the other side of his floor, passed by a low-level security checkpoint and turned onto the main corridor, C37. He walked down this corridor for half a minute, passed another, more thorough security checkpoint, entered an elevator, pulled out a small blastam pistol, and shot the guard twice in the chest.

The stench of burnt flesh began to fill the small metal box as it ascended and, watching on the security monitors from Hasbandi Control, Fischel Plumer of the organisation known simply as 'the agency' discretely switched the video feed into one showing nothing but an empty lift. He then started counting.

Fischel was not a happy man, and on this day in particular he was feeling quite pissed off, for lack of a better term. He had spent the last four months integrating himself into the systems of Hasbandi Inc; learning the operating procedures, security checkpoints, unique management features that made the H. Towers such an impenetrable fortress.

He'd studied employee manuals, schematics, done extra shifts and considerable overtime to make sure he knew the exact features of the security network, that he could predict exactly the way the people and systems would react to a terrorist threat; specifically information of a delicate nature (plans for the latest weapon of mass destruction being designed by Hasbandi) being stolen from a server on the thirty-seventh floor. He'd become so engrossed in the systems that he was even offered a pay-rise. He knew the system back-to-front and, according to his own modest judgement, was probably one of the best security operators that Hasbandi Inc had ever employed.

And today it would either all come together... or all fall completely apart. This made Fischel quite pissed off. The fact that the whole plan hinged on Vehlek putting on a good performance and not fucking up just made him more agitated.

As casually as possible, so as not to draw any attention from the other people working around him in the security centre, Fischel flicked a switch on his console that initiated a barely visible subscript to begin a countdown within the program that administered the elevator's security cameras. A second later a small chime sounded from the clock on the control centre's wall, signalling a shift changeover. Fischel signed off his console, pushed back his chair, and was out of the room and half-way down the corridor ten seconds later.


<i>Time, what we live and die by</i>

It took approximately fifty-eight seconds for elevator number two to go from the thirty-seventh floor to the roof with an average load of 150kg. Fischel's subscript had a turnover of forty seconds. Fischel had waited one minute and ten seconds from the time Vehlek shot the guard to the time he initiated the subscript. It took Fischel thirty seconds to reach the end of the corridor, and the security checkpoint into the highly restricted area.


Vehlek killed the two guards he could see with the compact blastem pistol, something that would not be found as a standard issue anywhere throughout the galaxy. The agency did not have standard-issue weapons. It was against procedure.

He checked around the corner quickly, noticed another guard on the other side of the roof, sighted in, and shot her in the head. Thirty-five seconds.

There was no-one else on the roof. Vehlek checked his watch to be sure of the time, shot out the security cameras, then stood back and waited.


The guards saw Fischel coming and were about to ask for his ID, but then the alarm went off and in the sudden rush of people trying to get back to their workstations Fischel was able to slip into a side-room. Vehlek would be on the roof, keeping the building security busy. They would quickly trace his movements back to the thirty-seventh floor, and figure out what it was he had 'stolen', but there was no way they would realise Fischel's influence in Vehlek's escape.

He pulled a small chip out of his waist pocket. Fischel was in a small, cramped room; low-lit, filled with banks of circuits and several monitors. He found the one he wanted fairly quickly and started switching the chips around. Everyone would be so busy dealing with Vehlek that they wouldn't notice what he was doing here, and he'd arrange to have the security tapes altered some time in the next few days by one of the digital artists in the agency's employ. For now, though, his job was done.

It had taken a little under four minutes, and it was done. Now he just had to get out alive.

[size=2]A Traitor’s Dream

The first night after we fled Muscave I dreamt that I was flying.

I was a bird; small, insignificant and vulnerable, soaring high above the hills and valleys of my homeplanet, Kasico. The wind was warm in my face and the sun hot on my back. The ground below was distant and seemed like nothing more than one large green blob occasionally cut through by a blue streak of river. I was in heaven.

Then the wind changed, and I felt my body being drawn backwards. The sky grew suddenly black, and behind me I could hear a terrible roaring. Shadows started to obscure the rivers below; the ground became a black carpet of spikes, rushing up to meet me. I looked behind to see what was making the noise and saw a massive cyclone hurtling towards me, TIE fighters swarming around it like bees, rocks and stones hurtling everywhere and making the loudest noise I had ever heard.

I tried to fly faster. The tornado kept gaining. I was loosing altitude, the ground climbing head over heel up to meet me. The roaring in my ears became a deafening shriek. I screamed then, terrified, mortified, petrified. As soon as that thought entered my head I found that I really was petrified, my body stiff and rigid, unresponsive. I dropped like a stone.

The tornado grabbed me then, seizing me out of my free-fall to certain death and oblivion, pulling me back towards its gaping centre; the TIE fighters jostling around, trying to get close to me. I started to suffocate, the dirt and debris cluttering up my throat. I couldn’t breath. My chest hurt. My head hurt. I wished that the tornado had just let me fall to the earth and die quickly.

Then a giant bunny rabbit ate me.





Wake up!!

"Aw, hell!"

I shot up in bed, banging my head on the low ceiling. For almost a full minute I sat there in confusion, thinking to myself; ‘I don’t remember the ceiling being that low.’

Slowly, as I cleared the sleep from my eyes, I began to take in my surroundings.

I wasn’t in my bed; I was in a bunk. In a cabin. With a low bulkhead above me, not a ceiling.

...star destroyers...surprise attack...closing in on all sides...have to get out...OUT!...can’t stay here, they’ve taken the spaceport...go, RUN!...jump to hyperspace; leave the rest of them, just go...

Then the memories of the last forty hours came back to me, and I shook my head. ‘Damn,’ I said out loud. "Damn, damn, damn..."

I sat hunched up on my bunk, taking a minute to remember the horror of the last few days. Waking up on Muscave Station to the sound of klaxons blaring, fighting down a hangover to get to my ship. I found my crew already there; waiting, impatient. We joined General Hoight’s fleet of defenders, vowing to give our lives to defend the system from the Imperial attack force.

But there were too many. Too many ships, too many enemies. Too few friends. The battle was quick and brutal, the Imperials taking out our capital ships like they were ants on the pavement, crushing them into oblivion. We were loosing, taking far too many casualties. There was no chance that we would survive. General Hoight hadn’t ordered a retreat.

There were only a few ships left in my task force. I remembered weighing the odds. Trying to decide what to do. I remembered the cruiser flying wing to mine exploding, then drifting listless. I remembered the screams over the comm bands as people were sucked out into space, their bodies exploding with the forces involved. I remembered the screams from my own crew as concussion missiles struck our hull, blowing out coolant tanks and fragments of loose metal.

I remembered giving the order to run, to break off our course of attacking the enemy, of drawing their fire so that the commanders of our petty fleet could escape. I remembered convincing the other ships in my task force to follow me. To desert the battle, to leave it to the Imperials.

To save our own skins.

To betray Muscave.

In my cabin aboard the Caspian Pride I lay back on the bunk, covered my face with my hands, and wept.




Ref: <a href=http://www.therebelfaction.com/forums/showthread.php?t=788>The Battle of Muscave</a>[/size]