The Rebel Faction

With nothing but Kamon's feelings to keep Cole preoccupied, time felt as if it were passing him by just a little too slowly. He wanted to place his attention on the heavily pilled paperwork that sat to the right of him at his desk. Despite his procrastination, Kamon still came as first priority.

The Rogue's feelings jabbed at Cole like a sore thumb, yet it was not only Kamon that came to reach him after some time. Great waves of trouble reached the master, trouble that seemed to stem... near by.

Reaching out toward the back of his office desk, Donovin slid his hand across the right back edge of the table, as he did so a hidden compartment area slid open, revealing itself within the center of his desk.

"Security, do an advanced systems scan on the perimeter around Tholatin."

Cole's green eyes became fixated on the object that slowly began to rise out of the hidden space about his desk.

Slowly the terminal before him produced the necessary data that he had asked for.

He came to glance at what he had once previously thought to be unoccupied space around Tholatin. He wasn't getting any hostile readings from the ships that were now visibly placed across his screen.

Hmm.. something's not right...

The Jedi rubbed apprehensively at his goatee as he thought more.

I don't see anything... but I'm sensing some hostility.. so where is it coming from...

He needed to talk to Kamon.

The lack of tranquility that swarmed within Cole's mind made it somewhat difficult to concentrate on reaching out to Kamon. Nonetheless, the Jedi did his best to block out any disturbances for the time being as he reached out with the force to tap into his friend's mind.

Kamon.... If you can hear me.. I want you to listen to me very carefully. I am getting some sort of disturbance via the force but I have not seen any signs of clear hostility. I am sure you have been able to take notice of this hostility much more quickly than I have as you are in direct range of open space, perhaps you've even been able to identify where it comes from. Nonetheless, it is clear to me that no intelligence equipment will be able to aid us as well as the force can. With your help, I think we just might be able to locate this disturbance and drive it out. What do you say, Kamon, are you up to putting our two minds together to work as one?

Patiently the Jedi waited, hoping that the Rogue would receive his call and respond back in kind.

The attitude aboard the vessels bridge was one of calm cool collectedness, set to a background of glowing display panels and the haze of cigarra smoke hanging like some ambient cloud over the tactical center.

Still without his beverage, the Captain had opted to settle for a smoke until someone got around to getting his tea. "XO, could you please tell me just what that is?" asked the Captain, jabbing a finger at one of the displays.

Glancing down, the other replied swiftly "Estimate location of M-1, the enemy fire is roughly four kilometers off of our extrapolation. Nothing reported out of the ordinary."

Trailing the pack, M-1 was doing her job wondrously. "I trust her evasives are on par?" added the older captain, exhaling a cloud of tabacc smoke. He was leaning casually against the arm-rail of his command-chair by this point, one hand resting on the shoulder of his TSO (tactical-situation officer).

"We can't find her," quipped the Chief-Sensor Officer, sounding insulted and proud all at the same time. "An' if we can't find 'er. They sure as rancor-shit can't. Plain and simple."

Slated, the Captain nodded approvingly before removing his hand from the shoulder of his young nephew, and strode towards the front of the command podium. This was a state-of-the-art ship, far beyond the measure of most anything the galaxy had before hand seen, and if he had anything to do about it this captain would assure the ship remained unseen. His sonar chief was correct, if they could not track their sister-ship, then it would be well beyond the ability of this enemy to further follow her motions. It was more likely that the enemy was tracking M-1, as best they could, through the Force... but given the distance, interference and general chaos of space around the enemy, the Captain trusted that his counter-part was well out of harms way. "Distance from the enemy?"

"We've moved well off. 20,000 KM and gaining steadily. Making 18 MG," came the response from the helm. "Following maneuvers, Sir."

"Good good," glancing to his left and tapping the ash from his cigarra, he continued "Time to leave, folks. Encrypt, will you please XO, the following?"

"Aye Captain, go ahead," replied the XO, making his way to the comm-center.

"Joggers become sprinters. Legs to D-1o0z." Chewing on the butt of his cigarra, the Captain paused a moment before continuing on. "Romeo on Goldilocks tail. All away free."

In mere seconds, the transmission was broken down, encrypted and broken again until it reached the appropriate predetermined level. Already the XO was leaning over the shoulder of the junior officer and adjusting the layering and frequency before sending the communication out. Even if the enemy were to capture the transmission, it would seem little more then a jumble of otherwise unrelated words.

"Done Sir," confirmed his XO.

Turning back towards the front of his bridge, the Captain knew his peers aboard their vessels would be doing much the same as he was about to. "Increase to full hot speed, 21 MG. Continue evasive pattern Delta-Pi and make for coordinates 100.98 mark 37.87.2."

Easily as that, the pack continued to move off, the rear ship drawing what misguided fire they enemy had to offer. Even the Captain knew no Jedi or Sith could maintain such a stressful link over such distance for long. While the enemy fire was still distant and of little concern, he would watch them closely.

"Ok. Pull him in."

The tractor beams targeted the vessel and captured it moments before it went into the minefield. Immediately a transport went across to board. The shields had been taken down by the unseen attackers and they didn't have to deal with that. They swooped into the docking bay and landed. General Hector stepped out and with his crew immediately ran for the turbolift.

"We have to get to the bridge stat. The ship is deteriorating. We don't have much time."

The lift opened and the four RPGC squashed themselves inside. The lift rose to thebridge without even asking for a code. Normally that would seem odd to them but right then they didn't care. The lift came to a stop and the door opened to the bridge. They stepped out and two of them ran to the console while Hector and the other looked for Trojan. Hector found him in a corner.

"Trojan we're here to rescue you. Come on."

"Sir. The console is inactive. Everything's on the fritz."

"Trojan? Does this ship have self-destruct? Did you activate it?"

He got no answer and he cursed.

"Help me lift him."

The Vondiranach

"Something's wrong. Pull us away from the ship as much as possible."

"What is it?"

"I'm not sure but something is definately wrong.Keep the fleet away from that ship."

"Yes, sir."

"I said hold onto him!"

"We have the larriet around him!"

"Well pull him back and throw something large and sturdy at the blasted hole!"

The mechanized larriet began to reel as it pulled the man back into the ship away from the whole. It wasn't looking good for Trojan and he was going to need an extensive bacta dip to get out of this one. Two fo the others detached themselves from the wall and quickly through a large piece of metal debris at the hole to plug it. The wind stopped momentarily and they all rushed forward to grab Trojan.

"Quickly! MOve! We have to get out of here!"

They ran to the door and Hector stopped at the control pamel and began to work furiously at it while the other team members pulled Trojan out of the bridge. He finally got the lockdown to work and the blast doors closed to seal off the ship. They took off down the hall to the turbolift and shot down to the hangar bay. The ship was powered up and waiting. A few other survivors had clambered onboard as the team rushed in and laid Trojan on the floor.

"Move Captain! Get us out of here!"

The ship took off and turned to go through the magnetic containment field and into space. Outside, the engines kicked in and they shot off towards the Vondiranach. Before they had gotten too far away, the ship behind them blew up, sending the small shuttle sommersaulting through space. It was a good thing everyone was either strapped in by then or held down. Otherwise they would be toast.

The Vondiranach

"Explosion!"

The ship bucked from the aftershock of the blast of the vessel blowing up. Kamon understood now what had happened to make him tell them to get away. He gripped his seat and held on as the shock waves hit the Star Destroyer making it rock. After a few minutes it settled down to the point where status could be gotten and someone barked out.

"Shuttle out of control on collision course!"

"Grab it with a tractor beam!"

"Already called in!"

Kamon nodded at the effectiveness of the crew of the vessel to recognize things and figure out the problems. Outside a tractor beam grabbed the shuttle and brought it under control and moved it slowly towards the hngar bay. Kamon stood from his seat and looked at the Captain.

"I'm going to the hangar bay. You have control."

"Yes, sir."

Kamon left the bridge through a turbolift and shot down a few levels then stepped out. Walking a little ways down a hall, he entered another turbolift and shot down to the hangar where the shuttle was just landing. Kamon walked towards the ramp and waited for the occupants to depart.

"Oh bloody hell. Nothing ever works out in our favor around here."

Kamon looked down at the now dead Trojan with sad eyes. The company he worked for was going to be very disgruntled and angry about this. What he really wondered was what he was going to do about the 20 corvettes parked in his airspace with no one to command them. They needed to get people to man them and all.

"I swear, Kamon, this is terrible."

"Indeed it is, Hector. We have the worst luck around here. Either under attack or having friends die while still misguided." He shook his head. "I wonder what we should do with those ships."

"Get people to man them I presume. Need to get someone working on the ground. Want me to get it going?"

"Yeah, thanks."

Hector nodded and walked off to place a call to the ground and get people going. They had twenty ships to man and not a lot of time to do it in. Ships with no crew were sitting ducks. Kamon looked around. They'd give Trojan a proper burial, sending him into the sun. It was the only thing they could do.