“Hurry up, cadet! Lord Talus wants this hatch repaired yesterday, do you understand?!” Training Officer Lombard stared evenly up the <!--EZCODE ITALIC START-->
Dawning Night’s<!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> boarding ramp at the newly emerged cadet, dressed in full service uniform and having the physical appearance of a twenty-five year old, whilst in reality being only a week and a half out of the cylinder. His eyes narrowed as he took in the young man, wielding a simple welding torch as he methodically worked the cockpit’s hatch back into place with the help of several other cadets holding it in place.
“Yes, Training Officer Lombard sir!” The cadet yelled down the ramp, moving his hand faster over the joining metal as the words came out. The woman working above him - a wiring specialist, her batch indicated - also started to speed up with the repairs to the electrical systems that made the door move.
“New cadets...” Lombard muttered, intentionally just loud enough for the work team to hear him as he started down the boarding ramp. “You will learn respect and honour for your work and the Lord Talus, or you will be punished,” he paused as he was half way down, turning to look back at them again. “Now work faster!
“Take over here, Corporal,” Lombard motioned to a stormtrooper standing off to the side briskly, who instantly left his post and marched up the ramp, yelling encouragement to the cadets as he walked.
This was to be the hardest time for these cadets, Lombard reasoned, as he strolled across the port hangar away from Terolyn’s ship. As fresh cadets, Talus’ clones were treated like banther fodder... until they learned respect, of course. That usually only took about two or three weeks, but the lessons they were taught in that short time stayed with them for the rest of their lives.
Lombard could even now remember the drilling he had been given - by the great Lord Talus himself, now there was an incentive. He was Talus’ first Training Officer, and he was definitely proud of the achievement... well, he was technically Talus’ first Training Officer. The Elite had done pretty much everything in the beginning, when the Lord was first assembling his crew.
Yes, the Elite would do the work, and Talus and Nec would be off in some corner, discussing things that even now Lombard didn’t know the subject of. Well, that was the way it had worked, up until a while ago. Now the crew was almost fully stocked, and the <!--EZCODE ITALIC START-->
Carrion<!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> was operating at peak efficiency.
Good thing, too.
----------
The stormtrooper Captain on duty in this detention area was, for obvious reasons, from a more intelligent batch than those guarding Oman had been. He had been given a rough idea of why this woman had been placed inside the ysalimir field, and why she was still under such heavy guard. Like Talus, then, she was probably well trained in situations where her Force powers would be of no use.
A formidable enemy, then, and one not to be taken lightly. This in mind, he had sent his most junior cadets into the cell first, but had still easily heard what was being said inside.
It didn’t take him long to put two and two together.
“Officer Lombard, sir, Captain of the Watch Gerber here, over,” static hardly obscured the transmission, and Lombard’s reply was instant, as he sensed the nerves in Gerber’s voice.
“Go ahe-” was all he could get out before Gerber cut him off.
“The woman’s ship will explode in fifty seconds, sir!”
And that was all Lombard needed.
----------
The tractor beams strained against the ship’s mass as it was pulled sluggishly from the hangar. All around it, fighters swarmed as everyone qualified took to the air to try and save as much hardware as they could if the plan being put to practise failed.
It was amazing, really, how much could be done in such a short space of time, if there was a powerful incentive behind you. People had started moving a mere split second after Captain Gerber’s instructions had come through, specifically because he had routed it through the hangar’s speaker system as well as Lombard’s commlink.
Now Lombard was at the blast door, sealing it quickly behind him as he watched the combined force of two Scimitar Assault bombers pushing heavily against the <!--EZCODE ITALIC START-->
Distant Void<!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->, scraping their noses blunt as they filled the port hangar with waste fuel. Almost everyone who could had already left - in either a ship or through the doors. It was commonly accepted that the Scimitar pilots would die an honourable death... which would be far more than that of the scanning team who had gone through the ship when it was brought in.
Even through the secured blast doors, Lombard could still hear the sounds of the Scimitar’s, working with the tractor beam to get the ship as far away from the hangar as possible. After what seemed like an eternity to him, but what was really only a few seconds, the engine noise died down, moving away from the <!--EZCODE ITALIC START-->
Carrion<!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> and out into the void - although not too distant.
The explosion was sudden, although rocking the ship only slightly.
<!--EZCODE ITALIC START-->
Thank the Sith that all the fighters were clear.<!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> Was all Lombard could think as he checked the readouts of a panel next to the blast doors. The men and women crowding around him looked terrified at what had just happened, although they were certainly still alive... unlike his cadets.
----------
Oman’s charm was lost on the stout female crewer, whose doorway he now stood in. All too late he realised that the smile hadn’t reflected on the emotionless stormtrooper helmet, and he drew himself up straighter... just in time to be almost knocked off his feet by the <!--EZCODE ITALIC START-->
Dawning Night’s<!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> final defiant stand in the cold space outside.
“What the frell was that?!” She exclaimed, turning quickly and completely ignoring Oman as she checked a panel just inside the door. Behind, Oman could see her roommate coming forward as he steadied himself, a questioning look on her face.
Oman was about to pose the question ‘So what was that?’, accompanied by a reliable slouch of indifference, when he suddenly did a double-take and looked again at the tech’s roommate. Then he looked back to the tech, then back to her friend.
Their faces, builds, height - everything - were exactly the same.
They were clones.
----------
“Frell!” Gerber cursed under his breath, at the unmistakable sound of stormtrooper armour hitting the deck. “Stay back!” He ordered quickly, noting some of his troopers’ anticipation of the command to advance. These people were edgy, all right. This was the kind of behaviour that got you killed on the battlefield.
“Captain,” one of Gerber’s Corporals called out from behind, motioning for Gerber to come and look at a readout at the command station down the corridor.
“Sergeant, keep them cool. Cover the door, I’ll be right back,” Gerber turned from the trooper next to him and hurried off down the corridor to the command station. He was half way there when blaster fire broke out behind him, and he swivelled just in time to see Terolyn’s head duck back behind the door. He then started back toward the cell, but again changed direction at the persistent cry of the Corporal.
“What is it, Corporal?” He asked briskly, annoyance filling his voice as he reached the station.
“Captain, new orders from the bridge,” the Corporal pointed with his finger to the readout on the screen. It showed a diagram of the deck, and positioning of new stormtroopers who were now moving into position on the other side of the cell wall.
Gerber was just taking in this new information, when blaster fire again broke out down the corridor. His head snapped up, then his arm to cover his eyes as the light of the explosion hit them.
“Frell!” He exclaimed. These junior troopers would have to be disciplined more in future, he noted to tell Lombard. Amidst the smoke, he thought he could see the dark figure of the prisoner running down the passageway.
“Seal off this section,” he ordered the slightly dazed Corporal. “And get reinforcements down here, as well...”
The Corporal was putting the order through, when Gerber put his hand on the man’s shoulder to steady himself. The Corporal, too, braced as the ship rocked with the shock wave the <!--EZCODE ITALIC START-->
Dawning Night<!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> had created.
Suddenly, though, Gerber had a new plan.
“No, wait... seal off this deck, leave the section open,” he bent to pick up the commlink that lay on the deck beside him, knocked there by the explosion’s force.
“Get me the bridge.”