The Rebel Faction

The Xliona system lay in the Outer Rim Territories not far from the impoverished planet called Sump. This particular system was mostly forget in the known galaxy after travel through the region had been restricted by the Old Republic. No one really knew the reason for why this happened, but there were rumers aplenty for why this new law had been put in place.

One of these rumers had to do with the system's mysterious past. The mysteries all started after a large mining consortium established a base in the system's asteroid field. They had found the asteroids to be rich in minerals from which durasteel could be manufactured and becuase of this had invested countless resources in order to build a large mining operation. Within a matter of months the asteroid field proved to be more profitable than anyone could have imagined. With war looming between the Republic and Sepratist forces durasteel was in high demand and its cost rose tremendously.

The Xliona asteroid operation had worked non-stop to fill all the orders, but than one day, suddenly, shippments from the asteroid field stopped arriving into the processing plants. Communication with the Xliona base had also ceased and no replies were recieved. Because of this, it was feared that enemy forces might have taken the asteroid field and a battle group was assembled to investigate. This group of ships, however, never reported back and was never heard from again.

Many other expiditions were sent out in search for answered, but every one of them had never reported back. From that moment on it was decided that no more resourced could be spent on missions into the system. In cooperation with the Old Republic the mining consortium stripped all records from its databanks that mentioned the system in question. All travel through the region was prohibited in order to save lives.

People, however, still tried to pass through the system as a shortcut to various destination and were never heard from again. This led the Old Republic to do something drastic, something had only been done a few times. The government ruled in favor of deleting the system from all star charts and forbid anyone from mentioning the system. It was hopped that over time people would forget about they system and never venture into it again.

Over the years people did indeed forget about the system. It was left alone for so long that even newer governments and military forces left the place untouched because it was unknown to them. The fact that officials didn't know the place existed was a godsend to criminal organizations everywhere. The knowledge of this system had somehow been passed down through the years and all unlawful groups tried to search for this system in order to establish a base which would be away from the prying eyes of law enforcement.

One of the largest crime organizations, called the Lornars Syndicate, was rumered to have made one of the asteroids a long time residence. This Syndicate had called one of the large asteroids home for many years and had used the base to stage numerous attacks on shipping lanes. The history ended there, however. After their move into the region and a few interception of convoys, they were never heard from again. The region was like a black hole, anything that went into it never came out.

Stellar Enterprises had learned about the Xliona system and its rich asteroid belt by accident really. They had acquired the same mining consortium that had ones called this place home. After the acquision that taken place, the consortium's records recieved a once over by a staff from Stellar Enterprises and a system was mentioned in one of the oldest records. A system that had not shown up on any star chart, but one that was indicated to contain a fortune in raw materials.

This was partially the reason why the modified Stellar Enterprises Dreadnaught had emerged near the Xliona Asteroids. Around this ship were three EagleEye Drones in their single triangular formation. Upon coming out of hyperspace these drones disengaged and split off as they start recieving commands from the Dreadnaught. All there quickly veered towards the asteroid belt and flew inside without a single worry.

There will not that many moon sized asteroids inside the field and it was estimated that the search should not take long. Each of these asteroids would recieve survey pass before the Drones moves on to other locations. These passes were being recorded onboard the heavy cruiser floating outside the asteroid field.

It was difficult to locate a single base, but the task was even more of a challenge to accomplish when the base was placed inside a massive asteroid field. For precisely this reason the images received were recorded, so that teams could go over them all more thuroughly later on. There was no doubt the base would be located, the only question was when.

The question, however, was answered as short time later when one of the drones flew around a large asteroid hundreds of kilometers in diameter. While monitoring the images streaming through the drone, one of the analyzers noticed something different about some of craters on the surface. When she zoomed in on them the craters had traces of glass like substance and black carbon scaring around them.

This turned out to be the stroke of luck needed to find the base. It was an indication that something important had been there and was bombarded. With this information the drone was sent to survey the asteroid more closely. There were many caverns to search, but after four hours a large opening was located at the side of a deep canyon that seemed to lead into the asteroid interior. What gave the opening away was its smoother edges, a sign of obvious man interaction.

Once located a message was sent to Stellar Enteprises Headquarters.

The shuttle slowly easied forward, moving through the hanger enterance and past the freighter reckage one the right side. Its floodlights filled the dark empty asteroid hanger with a scattered white glow as the light bounced off the metallic surfaces of the rear of the hanger. Inside, the walls were rocky and carved, but at the rear was a man built control structure. To the left of this structure was a large closed blastdoor.

As the shuttle touched down near this massive door, its hatch opened and out came figures dressed in all black with large assault rifles in their hands. These weapons were held against their black armored chests, but were still ready for use at the first sign of danger. The first of these helmet covered warriors rushed out and took up positions around the shuttles hatch in a loose box formation, covering all angles.

Their rifles scanned their designated zones while their helmet mounted displays showed everything clearly, even in the darkness of the hanger. The sophisticated vision systems of the helmet allowed the troopers to see in all environments as well as gave them tremendous zoom in ability. One the corners inside the helmets armor faceplate illistrated a real time map of the surrounding area and small greens dots which indicated the locations of other friendly troopers. More of these dots appeared every second as the others pilied out of the shuttle and onto the deck of the hanger before turning on their locator becons.

"Lets get this door opened gentlemen and see what we can find inside." Came the voice of their Commanding Officer, Colonel Ilmus Stevenson as he gestured towards the men.

He turned towards one of the troopers and grinned, "And of course ladies."

The person inside the covered suit chuckled. "Aw shucks, thanx Colonel. I'm glad you remembered this time."

Stevenson laughed and shook his head. "How could I ever forget Diller?" He paused and looked over at the large blast door at the side of the hanger. "Now get your ass over there and open that door."

"Yes sir!" The woman trooper replyed and jogged towards the controll panel beside door.

As the team moved slowly towards the door, she turned towards them and shook her head slowly. "No good, sir, sorry. This place doesn't have any power and that door is sealed shut."

The Colonel thought for a moment and looked over the large blastdoor. It was a massive hulk of durasteel and judging by the impact dents that coved its exterior, was probably over a meter thick. He slowly looked around the hanger to try and find another way inside when his eyes settled on the control structure on the side of the hanger. It had a row of reinforced windows, but he knew they wouldn't be hardly as tough to get through as the door.

Colonel Stevenson grinned and kept looking towards the structure now before him. "Oleffson!"

"Sir!" Came the instant reply.

"Your brought the LSR right?"

"Of course sir. Never leave home without one, my mama always said." The man said as he stepped foward and lowered his rifle aganst his chest, letting it hand on the strap.

"Oleffson, you mama's boy. Get that LSR out and put a round through that window up there." The Colonel instructed as he mentally commanded his helmet to zoom in the window he was looking at and take a digital picture of it. He instantly sent the picture to everyones helmet displays through the squad comminication system.

Oleffson looked at the image and was a little confused as to why he was being ordered to do that. As he thought about it he reach behind into his attacked rucksack and pulling out a round metallic tube no longer than 1/3 of a meter. He pulled on one end a little hard and the tube extended out to almost double the length as before. The Light Single Rocket launcher was now ready to be fired and the trooper raised it up towards the window. He sited the weapon using his helmet display and held it at the ready, finally realizing what the colonel planned to do.

"Fire in the hole!" He shouted and squeezed the trigger at the top of the tube.

The small rockets booster instanly ignited and launched the rocket straight out of the tube and into the marked window. Upon impact the shaped charge went off and shattered the reinforced viewport into small thick peices which showered down towards the hangers deck. Colonel Stevenson tapped the man on the shoulder and nodded slowly as he moved towards the command structured followed by the rest of the team.

As they moved Oleffson tossed the tube on the deck and gripped his rifle again, moving after the others. Ilmus looked up towards the new opening and had his helmet calculate the distance towards it. After he found out it was just over eight meters, he stepped back a little and bent his knees. The inner skin of the armor suit recognized the actions and primed the suit for a jump. When the man jumped into the air, all the microsynthetic muscle fibers sprang loose and increases his strength many fold, allowing him to jump the whole distance in a single leap.

When he was close to the window, Ilmus reach out and grabbed its edge. He used the assisted strength the suit offered to pull himself quickly inside the control room and landed soundly on his feet. In a flash his rifle was up and moving across the room, scanning for hostiles. When none were found he moved aside and signaled the others to join him.

The rifle poked out of the corner and turned to scan the entire hallway. Upon completion of the sweep an armor clad trooper stepped out into the hallway and slowly kept scanning with the rifle at the ready. As the soldier slowly moved on more figures emerged from behind the corner and followed him. The whole group proceeded slowly in expert order with their rifles covering every spot in front of them.

They were moved through part of the Vergesso Asteroid base on a seek and destroy mission. For weeks now the moon sized asteroid had been a bee hive of activity. Countless frieghters had landed inside the large hanger and had dropped off tons upon tons of cargo. Droids and technicians off loaded these necessary systems and moved them throughout the complex to install them.

The internal systems of the asteroid base that were still in place were so old and degraded that none of them could be used. For this reason everything new had be brough into the base and installed. So far only a small portion of the base has been upgraded, but this was the most needed area. A control center was now operational and the hanger had been upgraded for easier access and offloading of cargo. Also the powerful shields were now installed and were capable of protecting the entire facility.

All had been moving smoothly until two engineers and a number of droids went missing. This group of beings and droids had been exploring and working on a newly opened sections of the base when contact with them was lost. After some time a droid was sent to locate them and bring them back, but this droid went missed as well. Finally the Vergesso's new commander ordered combat droids to be brought in and to search the entire area. During this decision Colonel Stevenson asked to be included in the mission so that his team could get more training.

The commander agreed and so here they were moving through the asteroid's former computer center. It was all but stripped of all systems before the past owners had left, leaving an empty section that would be put to good use later. Now, however, was no time for thinking about the future. It was all about the now and about finding the people and droids that were lost.

Colonel Stevenson had taken full control of the situation and had instructed the droid team to search out in all directions from the team's last point of contact. Now as he moved through the long hallways, the Colonel could see his other teams moving slowly on his in helmet map. He had taken point this time and moved along the hallway, which looked exectly like the last one they searched. They had searched one room after another, but still after hours they found nothing. The same was true for the other droid teams.

Ilmus was about to order his team to take a rest when rifle swept over a large hole in a door that had been shut for years. The hole looked as is one made from some explosive devise except that it was forced out from the inside of the room and was not uniform. This was something reather strang that he had not seen before. Calling his team over with a hand gesture, Colonel Stevenson leaned against the hallway wall and pushed his rifle out into the hole.

The heavy assault rifle felt almost weightless in his powered suit. It also had a small multiview cam attached to it and feed all the images into the trooper's helmet. He moved the rifle from side to side and slowly up and down, scanning the entire room. Inside his helmet the entire viewport had turned into a display screen and showed everything the rifle saw in nightvision mode.

The room appeared to be a storage room for dried food stuffed because there were boxes of food all over the place. These boxes appeared to have been ripped open and half devoured. Some of the racks has also been turned over and twisted by something powerful. Zooming closer the Colonel could see puncture holes in parts of the metal storage racks which seemed to appear in threes.

A quick scan of the room revieled another gapping hole on one of the interior walls. This one, like the other in the door, looked to have been ripping from another room into the storage one. When the scan revealed that the room was clear, Ilmus stepped away from the wall and moved slowly into the room, stepping through the opening in the door. He thought about turning on helmet lights and instantly they flashed on, showering the room in light from the two flashlights attached to either side of this helmet.

The others followed him into the room and turned on their lights as well. They quickly followed proceedures without even having to be told and spread throughout the room to cover all angles and search it systemtically. As Ilmus studied the hole on the side wall, one of the troopers stepped to his side and lowered his rifle a little.

"What do you think did this sir?" That trooper said in a tough femanine voice.

The Colonel slowly shook his head and kept looking towards the hole. He had a bad feeling like something was out of place and was soon going to go wrong. "I have no idea and that bothers me. Whatever did this was strong and very tough..." He paused to measure the size of the whole in front of him. "And big."

Ilmus looked over at the soldier standing beside him. "I have a feeling that those people and droids were taken and we probably wont locate them alive."

"I think your right sir, look over here." Came a voice through his comm system, interrupting his thoughts.

He turned and moved towards the man that had called him over. Colonel Stevenson saw the trooper looked down at one of the room corners and followed the man's flashlight beams into the corner. There, beside the wall, lay droid parts. Part of a hand and leg were scattered around that part of the room, but to be sure Ilmus mentally instructed his suit to scan the remains. Within seconds a picture of the parts was taken and quickly matched the suit's database. A display appeared within the helmet screen and showed a rotating droid figure of the exect model droid they lost. Concidering that these parts looked fairly new and these droids hadn't even existed years ago, it could be pretty certainly said that these were parts of the droids they were looking for.

"The question is where is the rest of these droids." Ilmus said, but quickly stopped when his helmet picked up traces of sound coming from the room attached to the storage one.

The Colonel turned towards the hole in the wall and mentally issued a command to recall one of the droid teams for support.

They moved into the pitch black room in pairs and quickly spread out in front of the torn wall opening. Their rifles were up at the ready and their heads moving to scan the room continuously. This time they had only used their night vision system and kept the lights on their helmets off. This decission was one that probably saved someones life.

The enhanced vision systems made it possible to see inside the dark room as if it was lit. Moving quietly the team started a full inspection of the room before them. It turned out to be a computer center of some sort with large banks of old deactivated computer cores. Some of these looked to have been turned over and mawled by something fierce. Wires and circuits had been torn from inside the banks and were strune all over the floor. Also, the same puncture marks that were in the door and racks inside the storage room, were visible here on the computer cores.

As the rifles swept the area movement was detected on the other side of the room. After some mental commands, the whole team spread out and slowly moved towards that side of the room while still covering all the other areas. Colonel Stevenson's helmet moved slowly from side to side as his display changed, monitoring the room conditions and always indicating where his team members were. It was when he looked down at the ground that he saw a trail or something still warm leading towards where the sound was coming from.

The team moved through the maze of computers in a long line formation. They would make sure that whatever it was inside this room would never get passed them. Following orders they all moved as one and turned slowly towards one of the corners. It was finally at almost eighty meters away from the corner when Stevenson saw the trail end. This end happened to be a small pool of fluid running out of a dead body slumped in the corner.

The body wasn't just dead, it was riped in half with the lower portion missing. Internal organs were all out in the open, laying before the dead torso. Ilmus swept his gaze over the corpse and zoomed in the man's face. Within seconds his suits computer matched the face to a file in the databank. It was one of the very same engineers that went missing and that they were here to find.

HQ, this is Alpha Team. We have located one of the missing personel. Sorry to say the man is dead. We are not alone here in this base. Request permission to conduct a full security sweep and hunt down those responsible. Colonel Stevenson mental thought into the helmet after activating the communication system.

The reply came almost instantly. "Alpha Team, this is HQ. You have a go, repeat, you have a go. Full weapons free is allowed. Find those who did this. Out."

As soon as the Colonel acknowledged the order, the motion sensors on his suit went off. A three dimentional pointer and instantly appeared on this helmet display and pointed towards the sound that was detected. Ilmus turned to look next to the body, but there was nothing there. He switched over to thermal and still there was nothing. No sign of any person or creature.

Suddenly the dead man's arm moved a little and disappeared for a meer instantly. As it did the was a sound of cracking bone and tearing flesh before half the arm fell free, the small amount of blood still left in the viens and arteries leaking out onto the already stained floor. Whatever was there couldn't be seen by the nightvision systems on his suit meaning that they would have to use light and give up their advantage.

It was as soon as the team turned on all their lights that the creature could be seen. The whole area flooded with bright light, revealing a large over one meter long insect like animal. Its legs all ended in sharp talons that almost ripped into the hard floor as the creature sat there devouring the person laying before it. Inside its mouth as the half eaten arm it was just torn off.

As soon as the lights turned on the creature's large head quickly turned towards them. It let out a tremendous high pitched sound made all their ears hurt. Before the sound even ended the creatured launched itself towards them.

As the two animals insectiods advanced forward slowly, the whole team took a step back. Their rifles were trained at both of the creatures and they all awaited the Colonel's orders to open fire. He had never seen anything like these two creatures and ventured a guess that the small one they had killed earlier was probably their baby. Ilmus hoped that if that was the case there were only one of those around. They would have to conduct another sweep of the whole base after this was oven.

Knowing that the opertunity to study these new creatures was too important to give up, he mentally issued orders for each trooper to switch their weapons from kill to stun. It was true that the Colonel was a warrior, but he wasn't stupid. He didn't kill just for the sake of killing, but because it was sometimes necessary. These creatures were probably just defending their marked territory and if possible they should be neutralized and removed to a safer location.

With that last thought, Colonel Ilmus Stevenson gave the order to open fire on both the creatures. Dozens of bolts were ejected from the groups rifles and sped towards the two advancing animals. All but a small few hit two creatures dead on, but to the amazement of all the troopers, not one went down. The only thing to happen was that both paused in their movement for a second and let out a deep growl before shreeking out as the younger creature did. Their sound was so intense that it took all of the troopers will and training to hold onto their weapons and not try to cover their ears.

"Move it! Get out of the room on the double!" Shouted Ilmus, knowing from the last encounter that an attack was imminent.

Without protest the team began their evacuation of the room they were in. Half turned to run through the doors while the other half sayed on guard. All switched their weapons back to full power and prepared to use them. When the others ran out they formed a semicircle around the doorway and awaited the ones still inside to run over in order to provide cover fire.

In this situation, cover fire was indeed needed. Right after the last troop ran through the door on of the large creatures jumped through. On orders, the whole team opened fired at it instantlly. Even on full power the bolts didn't bring down the animal. Some cracked and dented the exoskeleton, while most just bounced off and burned the outside layer of natural armor. No one could believe the toughness of this animal, its skin was like thick durasteel yet bent and moved with the animal.

They creature before them roared out again and stood up on its hind legs while extending its wings. As it did the deck rang with the sound of charge cartriges falled to the floor before new ones were inserted into the blaster rifles. Before the animal could lower itself back down, however, something small, black, and round rolled under it. Not even a second after the object reached the animal, an explosion occured. One powerful enough that it pushed everyone back with the concussive force.

This explosion tore the creature almost completely in half. The floor was an orange mess as the hind end of the animal lay still and smoldering in the same place it had been. The front, however, was flung over 10 meters forwards and landed right before Lieutenant Diller's feet. It was a chared mess like the other half and still bleeding out all over the metal floor plate. It looked thoroughly dead and motionless.

Before she could even say a word the front legs of that part of the animal tensed and pushed the head out towards her so fast that she didn't have time to move. Everyone could hear Diller's scream and turned in time to see her fall back onto the floor with half of one of her legs missing. The creature's razor sharp teeth and powerful bite had completely penetrated through her armor and had cleanly torn the leg from the knee down from Diller's body in one final attack before its death.

Diller was in complete shock instanly as she looked down to where the rest of the her leg used to be. Her brain could not yet respond to the pain that flooded it and her shock kept Diller from screaming out more. As she watched streams of blood squirted from her knee and mixed with that coming from the animal laying before her. Within seconds, however, the squirts stopped and she could feel her whole thigh squeeze tight.

This feeling was the suit doing its job to save her life. It had detected the life threatening injury from the moment it had occured and knew the exact area that had been hurt. To prevent Diller from dieing of massive blood loss, the synithetic muscle fibers that made up the suits inside sink received special instructions to tighten at the thigh. This tightness squeezed the large arteries inside the leg shut so that blood could not travel through them quickly.

They rest of the team was on her quickly as well. They pulled out a med kit one of the team started to apply a specilized clot patch to the gapping wound. This patch soaked up blood and hardened around the wound quickly. As it hardened the patch also became tighter so that it could stay on by itself. Along with these properties the clot patch promoted the blood to clot faster and prevented it from flowing out.

As this was happening, the team had completely forgetten that there was one more creature left besides the one that had just died.