The Rebel Faction

" Well, as you can see, they have set it up so that each guard tower crosses the other's line of sight. They made a mistake though. There is virtually no line of site within 2 meters of the wall at the left entrance." Ryan looked over his motley crew. " We will have someone 'neutralize' the guard tower there. Preferably someone with expertise in sniping. Next we will hack the security panel for the left entrance and enter silently."

Again, Ryan paused and stared around. " Once we are inside we will proceed to the center of the base. I reckon we have about five to ten minutes from the time we neutralize the tower guard to the time when they are alerted. If we happen upon enemy guards you will eliminate them Silently. A simple tap on the back with a knife will do. Any guard who happens to see you should be eliminated immediately, preferably before he has time to contact control." Ryan looked around and offered a grin. " Should be a piece of cake."

After making this little speech, Ryan waited to see what the man code named as Stormy thought. " Also, since this is not spec ops, you will all refer to me as Lieutenant Korr, or Sir. Sturm will be co-commanding this exercise. You will refer to him as sir. Understood?"

" Yes sir."

It was hard to explain. Somehow, he felt danger. He felt an urge to move his head five inches to the left. He complied with his instincts, as always. A bolt whizzed by and buried itself in the ground. Without thinking, Ryan dived into the forest foliage. His camouflaged body armor blended with the underbrush, making it impossible for the naked human eye to detect him. What Ryan had felt he couldn't describe. But he knew that there had been an intent to kill, not stun.

He quietly brought his blaster up. The blast had come from behind and to the left. He zoomed in the macro binoculars in his helmet. There they were. Two men were climbing down from a tree. And, was that, Imperial Navy fatigues? Whatever their mission was, Ryan was going to find out. The training session would have to be put on hold. The comlink in his helmet beeped. " Activate."

The voice of Sturm came across " We may have to alter our mission somewhat." That was an understatement. The mercenary spoke into his helmet.
" Mission priority has changed. Fireteams Alpha and Beta, your new targets are the unidentified humanoids leaving the area. Korr out."

The Corellian Mando traveled through the land like a snake. The bushes gave a slight whisper as he past, but nothing more. The two men were running across an open field now. They were in plain sight. " Alpha, Beta, take the down, stun only." Ryan brought up his blaster. The macro binoculars rendered a scope unneeded. A targeting display came onto his visor. He fired. The bolt was spat from his blaster and hit one of the men in the small of his back. The man straightened, took two more steps, and fell to the floor. The other man stopped. The unknown enemy took a small pistol from its holster and pointed it at the stunned man's head. Ryan was already lining up another shot. But before he could pull the trigger another shot came from the trees. The enemy soldier's aim was knocked out of focus as the bolt hit him. His fire scorched the ground, inches to the stunned man's head. The new factor fell to the ground, neutralized as a threat.

" Targets down. Proceed with caution to pick up package."

"Names," demanded Sturm.

"Fisk," rasped a skeletal figure.

"Edward Eanmo," said the other, "but my friends call me Spinner."

"Well Spinner," decided Sturm, "I'm not so sure that you're in the company of friends. I mean, you didn't seem to act so friendly a couple of minutes ago. Isn't it amazing how one's personality changes when they lose their power?"

Neither said anything, but merely clamped their mouths shut. Sturm snorted. Well, that does match what their dogtags say. At least we have a base reaction time for them now to match up to. He spat at the ground next to the two bound men. Fisk winced. Alex fiddled with the switches on the carbine.

"So tell me boys, were you part of the Imperial Navy?"

"Years ago," reminiscenced Spinner.

"I still am," said Fisk.

"Is that so?"

"Um...yes.

Sturm snorted, "You know what, let's change this around. Let me tell you things. You know what, let me tell you a story, just like when you boys were in school wherever the hell you're from. Have you guys ever had someone special, I mean, really, really special. You'd do anything for that person?"

Spinner nodded, but Fisk merely did nothing.

"Well I did," said Sturm, "her name was Laura. If we were in better times, I'd describe her in all beauty and bet you she was better-looking than whoever you were with, and challenge you to fight if you disagreed with me..."

Sturm let a subdued grin flash across his face.

"...yeah, she really was amazing. I really miss her. Her laugh...her knowing smile whenever I did anything stupid...but she always forgave me for my stupidity, but never my fashion sense...it's really too bad she had to go."

Silence followed as Sturm stared the two down, and Fisk attempted to fidget. Spinner cleared his throat.

"What happened to her?"

"You morons managed to kill her," stated Sturm bluntly, "she was commuting back from work to our apartment in our landspeeder, when one of you bozos who was off-duty that day dropped onto her. Literally flattened her head like a pancake. Apparently you Imps don't know when to stop trying to appease your insatiable appetites. It's not enough that you have Coruscant, you have to have invade dinky little planet that no-one's ever heard of with a thousand star destroyers to crush some little primitive species. You guys just don't get the idea of being content, do you? You always have to have more. But you know what, I can help you with that. I can help you be content for millenia. It only takes a pair of blaster bolts, hell, maybe even one if I'm a good enough shot. Can probably do it too since you won't be going anywhere. You can scream if you want, but I doubt anyone who cares will ever hear you."

Sturm stepped back two paces and levelled his blaster at the two. Fisk closed his eyes as he contorted his face. Spinner's face turned nearly as white as a ghost. Sturm peered into his scope. He fired.

A bolt just whizzed over their heads, singing the tops of their hairs.

"Looks like I missed," grumbled Sturm, "hold still, won't you? Don't worry, this won't last forever.."

"I beg of you, don't do it!" snapped Spinner, "I don't deserve this. I was just a cook on the Knight Hammer!"

"You'll make a great substitute though; I mean, you have that nice fancy uniform and what not. Maybe I can turn your final moments into a nice holo-card for her family. You have any last words Fisk?"

"You won't get anything out of me," spat the man.

"So be it."

Both Imps closed their eyes. He pulled the trigger again. In flash, Fisk slumped down as much as the binds would allow. Spinner opened his eyes to see a manical grin plastered across Sturm's face.

"Your friend was a bit intolerable."

"Fisk? Fisk! Frak you."

"Don't worry, you'll be joining him shortly, maybe...You know what, scratch that. Shooting Fisk wasn't as fun as I'd like; didn't really feel like I lost my vengeance. Perhaps I could skin you alive. Or feed you Fisk over the next week, and then skin you alive."

"You're a monster! Don't you have any compassion for us? We're people just like you."

Sturm frowned, "No you aren't. You killed Laura. Do you know what it was like to lose her? You know what, you don't."

"Do you know what it'd be like to lose your guys sitting right over there?" countered Spinner, "you want to feel that pain again? I can stop the pain, repay my debt for being Imperial ten times over."

"And how are you going to do that?"

"Tell you about the people that just attacked you."

"Not good enough," replied Sturm, raising his blaster again.

"YOU'RE INSANE!" screamed Spinner, "you guys, help me out!"

Sturm nodded. "You're probably right, and I have you to thank for that."

"Wait Stormy," said one of the Ariston soldiers, "this guy looks like he'd really like to help us. Think you can contain yourself."

Sturm muttered and lowered his blaster, "You're information better be correct buddy. Because if it isn't, you will be eating Fisk as your last meal. But maybe we can sprinkle some seasoning on him..."

"I beg you, don't do it! Don't do it!" raved Spinner, "I'll talk, I've save your skins! Just don't do it! Please."

"Fine, now shut your yapping and start telling these fine gentlemen what you know," demanded Sturm, "I'm going to take Fisk away from you and put him into storage for a latter date."

One of the Ariston members untied Spinner and led him into the midst of the other infiltrators for questioning. Sturm dragged the stunned Fisk through a few bushes and pulled out his comlink.

"Commander Nix, we have begone interrogation of the prisoners. One of them has been less than cooperative, and we will need to send him to some specialists if we want to get him to talk. The guy's name is Fisk, and he is at the coordinates of this comlink..."

"We'll have base security pick him up in about ten minutes. How is the other one?"

"Oh, he's talking really nicely now. Had to warm him up a bit," said Sturm, "but I think I scared him up enough."

"You idiot," snapped Nix, "if you somehow hurt one of those people, well..."

"Not permanently," replied Sturm, "I've only knocked out Fisk with a stun bolt. The other guy thinks I executed his buddy. And you know how everyone looks after number one in the Imp camp..."

"I see..."

Sturm traced a series of lines in the dirt with his bayonet. He glanced up to make sure the rest of the Ariston team members were present. He peered past one of the black-suited men to see Spinner tied up to a tree and gagged with a piece of cloth torn from his own fatigues. Practical. We don't need him talking right now. Sturm completed drawing the rough diagram of the labor outpost.

"This was an Imperial labor camp back in the day," informed Sturm, "established after the Imps wrested Yavin back from us right after the destruction of the first Death Star. When the Imps left, a bunch of smugglers took it over and turned it into a small spaceport servicing their kind and other people who needed to maintain a low profile. It looks like these Imps that we found eventually retook the base after their escape pods crashed on Yavin when the Knight Hammer was destroyed. Presumably they're all stranded there with nowhere to go. Smugglers probably left in a hurry when they saw a bunch of Imp soldiers headed their way. So they probably don't have any vehicles or heavy weapons to worry about, but they'll have all the modern conveniences of home, and probably some very basic security systems throughout the complex from when the Imps used it as their own spaceport. I'd guess at the very least we're going to have somehow deal with some walls and perimeter security cameras at the very least, besides the men themselves. They're former military people, albeit not all troopers, so they all know how to handle weapons at a very basic level at least. But nothing we should overly have to worry about as long as we don't get to lax and complacent..."

His datapad pinged, and Sturm toggled through a few screens before finally coming to his SpyEye's live footage. Sturm snorted and passed the screen around to everyone.



"This is live footage of the facility from my security remote...it looks abandoned, which means they either left, or they're hiding, waiting for us. There also appears to be a broken down Corellian Corvette docked there right now, which they could be hiding in...probably was a smuggler craft under repair before they came. So we're going to have to take over that besides the buildings you see here. Note the globe-like security cameras in the living facilities...yeah, that's the building closest to us. So how shall we go about this?"

Sturm shook his head.

"It's pretty hard to tell what's all there at this point. We don't have a full recon or a whole lot of background info on the base. There are enough unknowns with it that we're going to have expect the unexpected, or at least be prepared for it..."

The resistance fighter glanced around him. Well, I'm the guy who really will blend in...I'm super heavily armed compared to these guys, and my stealth abilities are better than a Jedi Infiltrators...I should probably stay away from this stealthy stuff...just maybe... He cleared his throat.

"I should probably take of the distraction part," stated Sturm, "because I'm not even close to being an infiltration expert. But I can provide some miscellaneous support to your operations as you need it. Recon, anti-security stuff and what not. But haste makes success; we should get going."

Sturm shouldered his pack and started moving through the jungle towards the base, following the map on his database as provided by his SpyEye.