Location: Observation Post, Center complex top floor
Objective: Protect Eclipse Forces and ensure extraction of troops
Equipment: One (1) custom-made shoto lightsaber,
One (1) CR-1 Blast Cannon, One (1) 50-meter length of synthrope, Four (4) standard thermal detonators
Appearance: Nondescript Imperial Uniform, (minor customizations). Mismatched with
standard-issue Ultranaut helmet.
Ground Forces: Eclipse ground troops, airdrop unit. Approx. 25 troops
Interacting with: Malicar,
Aerarii Tithe
, Karisa,
Dash Typho
Nearby Tags:
Loreena Arenais-Valhoun
,
Kascalion Giedfield
, Grand Moff Aut-X,
AMCO
,
Will Westender
,
Kyrel Ren
, Adelle Bastiel, Curtis Learchin, Cedric
Sargeant Dag was no medic--after giving the order, there was little he could do for his men but watch and wait as the Jedi listened to these people in complete silence. From this distance, what exactly they were saying was hard to tell. He could catch snippets of words from the non-Chiss guy, but he couldn't make sense of them. "Cult" and "immunity" and "commercial", those weren't words that made sense under the parameters of the mission. Whatever it was, it meant that they weren't about to start firing again. The Jedi's lightsaber fizzled out, and she raised a hand she held it in, bidding the conversation to stop. He could hear her mumble some vague pleasantry as she turned on her heel and marched, stiff-shouldered, back to Dag and the men.
"I'm changing the mission," she said as she approached--and nothing in her voice sounded happy about it. If it weren't being filtered through the helmet, Dag would wager that she was furious. "The intel's bad. This location's not a Sith lab, it's just a normal outpost. Not even strategically useful. Damn it!"
If Dag's blood hadn't run cold before, it would have right then.
Intel bad. No Lab. It wasn't hard to extrapolate what that meant about the entire mission. He'd led his men into a trap, based on information that...maybe had
never been real. Five men had
died, based on a
lie, and suddenly the Sargeant wanted nothing more than to shoot something until it stopped moving.
"What about them?" he said, gesturing at the two Chiss with his rifle.
The Jedi didn't even look in their direction. "Not a problem. Apparently they're no one the Empire thought worth warning. That one," she gestured vaguely to the non-Chiss in the suit, "says the Sith Empire operatives below think they're fending off cultists."
"....But that's stupid." Gorello had been patching up one of the wounded nearby, but apparently the wound hadn't been serious, not if he was able to eavesdrop. And apparently, he was already done, if he was able to pop up out of nowhere and ask questions.
"Why would cultists be attacking a random outpost in the middle of someone else's war? What would even be the point?"
"I didn't say it made sense. Just that that's the excuse they bought."
"So this isn't just a trap for us," Dag said,
"it's a trap for everyone who isn't an Imp." He pinched the bridge of his nose, taking a deep, frustrated breath. The Jedi had been right...this was about to become very bad, very quickly. No wonder she was opting to change the mission.
"Alright, then, what's the mission now?"
He and Gorello looked to the Jedi together. The Jedi swung her helmeted gaze back and forth between them, taking a single sharp exhale before she continued.
"We're abandoning taking the outpost," she said briskly.
"It's like the private said, there's no point. As far as I know we're the only ones who know this mission's already karked. That means it's up to us to warn the others in the ground approach and get them to retreat."
"If the Sith are already waiting for us, going down the tower's a suicide mission."
"....Not necessarily." The Jedi knelt at Dag's feet abruptly, clipping her lightsaber back to the small of her back. With her newly free hand, she peeled off one glove, then the other, then pressed her bare palms to the ground between the chunks of rubble. As he and Gorello watched, she seemed to lapse into a strange stillness; only the helmet-exaggerated sound of her breathing would have let an observer know she was a living thing at all. Gorello nudged Dag, all but wriggling with what he could only assume was excitement at witnessing
for real Jedi powers. Although what power
this was, or even if it
actually were one, the damn boy probably wouldn't be able to say. The Sargeant was about to turn to shush him when--
"The ropes we used for entry." Her voice came with a suddenness that made them both jump.
"How long are they?"
Gorello was standing next to the rope Dag had come down on; he tugged on it experimentally, looking up.
"Shortest's thirty meters."
"...Right. Okay, that works." With that, the Jedi stood and brushed her dust off her palms.
"Sargeant, prep the men. Punch out some windows, pull the ropes while I make a few calls. We're going down from the outside."
It took a moment for Dag to catch on. He looked to the ropes, then the windows, the full scope of the order dawning on him.
"...Which will bypass whoever's downstairs waiting on us!" He rounded back towards the men, his grizzled face splitting into a fierce grin for the first time all day.
"Alright, you scrubs, you heard the Jedi!" he bellowed.
"Pull the ropes! We're gonna go save our brothers!"
The room exploded in a chorus of whoops and a flurry of activity. Gorello was already far ahead; he had already yanked the rope in his hand down, and was coiling it around his arm.
"I told you," he all but sang at the Sargeant.
"I told you, man, the Jedi's our lucky charm!"
The Jedi had already turned and was fiddling with her helmet's audio controls, scratching at her shoulder with the other hand. At the sound of Gorello's praise, however, she froze for only a moment.
"No one ever said I was a Jedi," she said, turning back to them. For the first time, she sounded a little...lost.
Well, that was unexpected. Dag blinked, a little lost in return.
"Then what're we supposed to call you?"
He felt a nudge at his shoulder, and turned to see Gorello yet again. If he thought the boy had looked smug before, now his grinning was downright insufferable. He nudged Dag again, and the Sargeant suddenly realized why.
"No," he said, horrified.
"That's stupid. And you're stupid for thinking it."
"It's cool and you know it."
"Absolutely not."
***
They had to move quickly. Na'an stepped back towards Malicar for some quiet as her troops started breaking windows and attaching ropes. She set her helmet comms to a dual-frequency transmission. Reaching out to both the Voice of Abbaji and the fleet commander above would save time, and ensure the message got out even if one of them wasn't in a position to receive. And it was
desperately important that the word got out. The last few months of practice since her time on the jungle planet had already paid off, and between on what she'd felt out a few minutes ago and the hot itch still creeping down her back (
Tacitus Tacitus the hot smell of dust and death), she could not afford to drag her men in front of who waited below. There was no way to assume any of them would get past them alive.
"Commander Typho, there's a problem," she said sharply into her helmet.
"This whole thing's a trap. There's no lab. We're moving to warn the others and start extraction, but we need cover to get down the side of the tower without getting picked off. Please confirm."
While she waited for the confirmation, she looked to the three whose meeting she interrupted. The three of them were dressed in their corporate finest, now covered in dust and bits of canapes; if the situation weren't so serious, she might have almost found it funny.
"We've got better priorities than staying here and protecting you lot," she said, looking up at Malicar.
"But I hope the three of you remember what it feels like having Tacitus play you for chumps. It won't be the last time he does it before all this is done."
Adriana Fortemps
//
Ardana Vorco
//
Teresa Zambrano | Darth Pellax
//
Ru Comet
// TSE
Agrippa
// EE
Allyson Locke
. He would be guided to Rae Cooke. Hopefully, his notes reminded him that she was in deep cover under the Sith Empire regime.
