The Longest Day (Part 1)

[Kenrath]

Carida
0700 Local

Colonel Cole Dagos made his way towards the Ready Room of the 29th Specials Operations Brigade. He had only made it past breakfast and it looked like it was going to be one of those days. One of those week long days where you couldn't catch a break no matter how hard you tried.


As he passed into the room the Operations Officer was the first one to look towards the door and call everyone to attention. "Officer of Deck."

Cole raised his hand up quickly. "At Ease." "Major let's get started."

Cole took a seat at the head of the table and waited for everyone to sit down before glancing around at every at the table. All in all 3 men were physically present with another 4 appearing on holo at the table with two more in a set of chairs off to the side. It was a Captain off to the side that spoke up first.

"Sir...........please forgive me for jumping ahead of the line but we have a situation."

The man paused just a minute as all eyes turned to him.

"Proceed Captain." was all Cole said to him.

The Captain pulled out a hard copy file and handed it to Cole. It was a personnel file marked with the highest classification label the Imperial Army used.

"Sir we lost contact with Romeo Victor 2 5 about an hour after sending this message." The Captain handed out a slightly redacted version to every man in the room with only Cole received the full version.


Each man read it a few getting wide eyed but only Cole spoke.

"How long ago and has this been verified?"

"We are going on 36 hours now and unofficial confirmation makes the report credible Sir." The Captain waited letting the others in the room have their initial reactions.



[member="Alva Calvarona"] [member="Caius Flavian"] [member="Kara Runo"] [member="SC-4486"] @Tanomas Graf

 

[Alva Calvarona]

[member="Cauis FLavian"] [member="SC-4486"] [member="Cole Dagos"] [member="Kaidan Hawk"]

Alva Calvarona couldn't help but sigh as she stared at the news of what was happening with the Republic. In all honesty a power such as the Republic was always likely to collapse any moment if the wrong individuals came to power and there was nothing in check to keep things from getting out of hand. It was why the very decision of their alliance had been a very hard one. However, considering the Empire's position with the Sith mindlessly pursuing them the agreement to setup on Carida in exchange for supplying the Republic with support was too good to have passed up. Even though it appeared to have resulted in extremist Imperials, most likely given Sith approval to group up without being targeted, forming their own little cadre and claiming legitimacy as the face of Imperial power.

Between that and the battles that had been fought for the Republic as a result of their agreement, the crinan woman had felt very exhausted and tired as of late. For now she was merely content to quietly rest on Carida while preparing for true pushes for the Empire's return to the forefront in its proper place. The storm brewing within the Republic seemed a bit disconcerting in that regard though, but they need only to weather it before they were likely to be ready to get to the point to reward the faith of those who had stayed to watch their rise once more. For now though, Alva sat back in her seat looking over the parade grounds of the academy while looking back to the news reel of the senate fiasco going on. The Republic was going to be interesting to watch for the time being, so long as they didn't start going off the rails and putting the Empire on Carida at risk there didn't seem to be a reason to involve themselves in this political mess.

Oh there was plenty they could possibly do, but Alva didn't imagine they could pull off the influence needed to succeed.

 

[Tanomas Graf]

Moff Tanomas Graf was staring out of the window into the darkness of space, he was standing in one of the alcoves on the bridge of the Abdicator, an Imperial-I Class Star Destroyer, it was an extremely old but extremely reliable model, having seen service in the Galactic Civil War, where the Empire was the dominant galactic power. Moff Graf was angry, the Empire should be a galactic power now, but the damned Sith and Imperial traitors have caused that dream to slip away from him piece by piece. He wanted nothing more than to take a fleet out to their space, and destroy them, executing the traitors, especially the foolish Moff Greth.

But for now he would wait, there was nothing to do but wait, sit back idly and conserve their power. Moff Graf walked out of the bridge and back to his war room, he had been planning a strategy to snatch Utapau as a command world for the Remnant, a secret one at that, he sat down and began reading through reports from his scouts that had been to the system. There was currently nothing stopping him from investigating the planet himself, but he would need the rest of the Empire on his side. Like always, he would wait.

In the end, he would always wait.

[member="Alva Calvarona"] [member="Caius Flavian"] [member="Kara Runo"] [member="SC-4486"] [member="Cole Dagos"]

 

[Utena Calvarona]

So many things had been happening and changing while she moved around. Carida was a fun place at least in terms of some of the different things that could be happening. She danced with some of the others who were there while she let her sister go off and do her thing with the important people. She didn't want to have to pack up and move again but she had started making a habit of keeping a bag ready to go with fresh cloths and travel papers. All of that was there while she wa rushing to get to Alva's side with her force golem and the form fitted outfit she was wearing.

 

[Kara Runo]

Carida
Fort Stalwart - Hangar Bay A2
0701

"Kark it" A tired and frustrated Kara exclaimed loudly to no one in particular.

For the last hour and a half she had been up performing Preventive maintenance on her POSC, or personally owned starcraft for you civvies.
Inside the ventral belly of the old Lambda class shuttle "Cradle" she was buried under cables and conduits with a micro pneumatic wrench.
For the past week the sublight engines had been inoperable due to old wiring and circuitry.
Now she had finally procured some parts through a few back door deals and trades.

She wore her coveralls along with some basic heat resistant eye protection goggles.
Weathered eyes peered through the lenses at the old circuit panel she had finally wormed her way too.
Placing the wrench in her teeth. She carefully let an arm droop below with an outreached hand prompting a droid below
"KIT-9, hand me the new motherboard"
The cat like droid leaped up with the chip its mouth and smoothly plopped the chip in Kara's patient hand.
KIT-9 was playing the audio from the Holonews networks. The galaxy was going to fething junk and there wasn't much that she could do about it just yet.
The Galactic Empire was still just a sliver of its former glory, now holed up on Carida in the heart of the Republic's territory as practically a protectorate state.
A number of the higher ups had broken off and attempted to former a new government elsewhere but they were just continuing the same warlordism that plagued the Empire.
Now there were other groups of similar mindsets,some more zealous than the Empire's.
Still these were all matters beyond her control.
For now the LCDR was focused on the here and now. Which mean't that soon she would be able to fly her home again across the skies and into the black.
"In our top story tonight the Prime Minister Lasedri's clone army has fortified its defenses around the capital of Chazwa and appears to remain entrenched. Meanwhile the Prime Ministers forces have made several hostile acquisitions against numerous corporate enterprises. Next we will discuss... *static*... at Manaan followed by an interview with Senator Balor-Organa at the top of the...*static*..."
"Well that is weird, KIT-9 run a diagnostic, we are in the heart of republic space for celestial's sake, shouldn't be losing signal strength..." She mumbled with the wrench in her mouth, unfortunately as she moved as her lips the wrench slipped out and dropped between several conduits, just out
"Fething, frak, kark, dungbrains its just going to be one of those long days isn't it?"

[member="Tanomas Graf"]
[member="Alva Calvarona"]
[member="Cole Dagos"]
[member="SC-4486"]

 

[Kenrath]

[member="Alva Calvarona"] [member="Tanomas Graf"] [member="Utena Calvarona"] [member="Kara Runo"] [member="SC-4486"]


Cole nodded for a moment a contained look of concern on his face. The asset in question was one he knew personally and not the type to miss contact unless something had seriously gone south. It is why Cole had chosen them for that particular posting.

"Do we have anyone else in the area that can verify?" "I want something concrete before I start sending up red flags."

The Captain shook his head.

"Not that would get there in time Sir."

Cole nodded.

"I figured......thought I would ask anyway." "Send an encrypted message to Alpha Sierra 4 6." "Get me a status update."


Just as Cole finished his comm went off. He hit the button activating the tables holo. One of the LT Colonels from another unit appeared but the message seemed to be less than clear. Static made it difficult to catch the entire message.

"Sir...........................Johnson........................we................request..............................Sir.

Cole looked over at the other men in the room with a curious look. A look which was returned in kind. Cole tried to adjust the frequencies with no luck getting the signal to clear up. He finally just closed the channel and stood up.

"Looks like I am going to half to cut the meeting short gentlemen." "Have the tech run a diagnostic on the terminal.......see if we can't get this thing fixed."

As the men stood and snapped to attention Cole exited the room moving towards the Army Headquarters building. His specific destination the Ops room. He was not scheduled to be on duty until after lunch so he could attend the needed meetings of which he still had two he would not be making apprently. This was just another thing that echo'd his earlier sentiment of it being a very long day.

 

[Graf's Archive Account]

SC-4486 was sitting in the armory of the Imperial Headquarters on Carida, polishing and tinkering his modified E-11 rifle, it had been a month or two since he went out on a mission, so instead he had been training rigorously every single day, and to be honest, he was tired of it all, he just wanted to do something exciting and dangerous for once like fending off an invasion, but the High Rankers had simply refused to send a Colonel out into the line of duty anymore, and it was just boring now.

The colonel just wanted something to do.

[member="Alva Calvarona"] [member="Caius Flavian"] [member="Kara Runo"] [member="Tanomas Graf"] [member="Cole Dagos"]

 

[Bubba Da Hutt]

The Republic had become divided, torn between those loyal to the Senate, and those who followed the Prime Ministers vision for the future.
The Clone Army, raised by Prime Minister Lasedri, had made a prelude strike a little over a day before.
It was swift and decisive, a war criminal had been captured and extracted from the world.
Now though that scalpel had been used, the hammer would soon fall, and this remnant shard of the Empire would be smashed apart for good.

Carefully timed to coincide with the explosive force of a solar flare detected a small force of Republic Clone Commandoes had slipped in.
One team had been sent to extract a specific target.
The other team was to assassinate two powerful and influential members of the Empire's leadership, Moff Graff and Princess Alva Calvarona.
A squad of commandos had without raising any alarms captured a communications station planet side of Carida.
There they had monitored the Imperials communications notating the intricate system of how the Imperials transferred information through communication channels.
A communique was generated by using Moff Tanomas's account with a personal request to meet with the princess planet side at the primary star port.
A second communique was generated after painstaking slicing into Calvarona's communications account, this one was address to the Moff requesting to meet him at the star port dirt side. The message both would recieve was so that they can discuss the future of the Empire in person and in private.
Both were encrypted and sent with the appropriate letterhead and signatures.

It was a clean slice.

Now the play was put in motion.
The Recon element had made their move.
Next the Assault element would strike at the predetermined position.
The Imperials would not know what was coming.
Surprise was the element the of the day and it would be a long day for the battle to reclaim Carida from the Imperialists would not be won without casualty and loss.
Unexpectedly the Imperials had their own intelligence apparatus infiltrated in the various echelons of the Republic...

[member="SC-4486"]
[member="Cole Dagos"]
[member="Utena Calvarona"]
[member="Alva Calvarona"]
[member="Tanomas Graf"]

 

[Alva Calvarona]

[member="Utena Calvarona"] [member="Kara Runo"] [member="SC-4486"] [member="Cole Dagos"] [member="Kaidan Hawk"]

The sound of a communication ping of her comlink made Alva sigh in the midst of her pondering. In all honesty she was becoming agitated with her musings anyways so she supposed a distraction was welcome. Yet all the same she was irritated that she knew the Empire could be doing so much better if they merely had better positions of authority to barter influence from. Instead they were losing to fools behaving flashily who were basically begging to be targeted, but sadly would not likely be with their connections. Well perhaps Moff Graf could help her come up with potential plans of action after they met up. She did wonder at the sudden request for a private conference, but then perhaps he had caught word of an opportunity given his more active political position.

Regardless of their struggling, Carida was still a world where they could rest safely thanks to the arrangements and sacrifices they had made thus far. Well, it was also safe exactly because they had been permitted to take up residence upon it as well, and any fools who challenged Carida would come to understand the foolhardy nature of such action. "Ah right, regardless of whatever plans we discuss I should ask Graf if the budget would allow construction of a Hypervelocity Cannon or Planetary Turbolaser. . . if not perhaps the Republic could be convinced to back the installation. The world is still technically theirs though we essentially guard it ourselves while we persist in staying here." Whatever way it ended up happening, the idea of further defenses on Carida made Alva grin as she entered the turbolift to take her down to her waiting speeder so that she could make her way to the star port.

 

[Tanomas Graf]

Moff Graf was in the middle of finishing his attack plan when his personal terminal went off, he stood up and went over to it, logging into it and checking the message within, 'It seems the Princess wants to meet in person, but why the starport of all places? This does not seem like normal behavior for her...but it does have the correct command codes, I will arrange for security to be there in case things go bad...yes...security' He thought to himself as he sent a message to someone, He closed his terminal after logging out of it and walked back out to the bridge "Captain, prepare a shuttle for departure, you have command" He told the Captain, who nodded and went back to his duties.

Tanomas made his way down to the secondary ventral hanger of the Star Destroyer, where a shuttle awaited, he boarded and told the pilot to take him to the primary starport on Carida, the ramp closed as the shuttle lifted and left the hanger, its wings extending as it descended to the planet.

[member="Alva Calvarona"] [member="Caius Flavian"] [member="Kara Runo"] [member="SC-4486"] [member="Cole Dagos"]

 

[Bubba Da Hutt]

0737

"Looks like Crown One ([member="Alva Calvarona"]) is moving to VIP location" A clone commando providing overwatch on the Imperial communications network relayed to the assault element. "Crown Two ([member="Utena Calvarona"]) appears to be moving toward One" The clone commando tapped his key board at the control terminal. Behind him a bloodied mess of bodies strewn about after the short but brutal fight to take this comms bunker. "Team Alpha and Bravo, Executor ([member="Tanomas Graf"]) is also on the move, proceed to point One Two Zulu"

"Copy that Overwatch" Team Alpha's squad leader replied
Three clicks on the comm channel from from Bravo Team's squad leader was acknowledgment

Team Alpha was eight men strong had donned Storm Trooper armor, while unable to use most of the features of the Imperial armor they were able to slip through a few check points undetected as they moved in pairs through the Starport.
Carida's main Starport was a massive facility capable of handling hundreds of small ships up to several dozen capital ships.
It was broken up by a number of prefabricated fortifications built to respond to any security issues.
The "Officers Landing" was a number of shuttle sized landing pads with executive office suites and amenities to cater to any one of high class and rank.

Team Bravo had spent hours before navigating the myriad of service tunnels beneath the star port and carefully made their way to the central nerve of the Star Port. Hiding out now in several service corridors the team was preparing to storm the Port Control Room. They wore Republic Commando armor and were equipped with a variety of grenades and explosives. Each man checked his weapon one last time before quickly overwhelming the technicians and officers in the room. A clean assault with no alarms raised. Port control was now in the hands of the clone commandos.

Team Alpha was loosely taking up positions in pairs around the general vicinity of the landing pad that had been designated by Overwatch. To everyone else they wouldn't look too out of place. It wasn't unusual for starport security forces to add extra security details to areas where VIPs would be in attendance.

Overwatch expended a moment assessing the third clone strike force who appeared to have failed to strike fast enough.
A communication was in progress to the Army headquarters ([member="Cole Dagos"]). He scrambled the relays from the point of origin and did his best to throw up a series of "mechanical failures" that would read across the board as easily correctable but time consuming to fix. It wasn't enough to prevent the whole message from only a few words getting through, unfortunately enough to rouse suspicion however by the time the Imperials realized what was going it would be to late when the real show would begin.

[member="SC-4486"]

 

[Kenrath]

Carida Imperial Army HQ
0745


Cole made his way towards the Ops room flipping through the calendar on his personal data pad. As he entered the tension was thick in the air. Thick enough you could almost taste it. Cole looked up seeing Major Johnson standing in the center in front of the main console.

"Major.........what is the situation?"

The Major looked up seemingly relieved to no longer being in charge.

"Sir, the Communications terminal is on the fritz." "The signals were coming in perfect and then they cut out for a minute." "It spit out a mechanical error."

He paused looking back towards the terminal for a minute before turning back.

"We got that one fixed but when we tried to run a diagnostic to confirm it crashed again and spit out another mechanical error." "It has been doing it for the better part of an hour."

Cole frowned as he listened scratching his chin.

"It took another 15 minutes to get a message through to you before it cut out all together."

Cole picked up the duty log noting everything had been documented just like the Major had said.

"When is the last time maintenance has been done on the terminal?"

The Major turned walking over to the door and pulling the hard copies of the building sign in logs flipping through it before responding.

"Looks like last week Sir......................." "Everything checked out."

Cole frowned shaking his head.

"Ok here is what we are going to do." "Check short and long range communications." "Initiate a net wide communications check with all terminals." "Let's see if we can isolate the problem area."

He paused.

"In the mean time break out the portable comms and establish communication with all check points." "Where is the duty roster?"



[member="Alva Calvarona"] [member="Tanomas Graf"] [member="Utena Calvarona"] [member="Kara Runo"] [member="SC-4486"] [member="Imp NPC"]

 

[Kara Runo]

0755

Kara shook up her bottle of protein mix while reclining in the cockpit's pilot chair. She stretched her legs stretched over to the co-pilots chair and slouched down.
A diagnostic was processing and would help finalize this project of hers. Hopefully the Cradle would be back up and flying again.
68% and counting.
The thought of flying it again was very exciting bring a smile to her lips. She tilted her head back and forth rolling that possibility around.
"Ugh if I wasn't dirt side I could just clear it with the Flight Officer and be good to go..." She bemoaned the garrison life that she and Delta Squadron now lived.

Carida was a nice and fantastic planet, the Army and Storm Corp were having a blast setting up shop in all the old facilities around the world.
All this movement was generating a lot of traffic in the skies and while it would hardly look crowded the training airspace for pilots still had not opened up.
It almost made her want take a Sentinel class for a spin to do some orbital to surface assault training with the stormies but she had responsibilities that couldn't be shirked.

"Speaking of responsibilities..." She muttered checking the time. "Five minutes to colors... two hours from there till physical training time" Her lips formed a grin at that last part. She loved PT, but most importantly she loved unit PT, not because she liked exercising with other people rather it was the Espirit de Corp that came with it. Everyone in Delta Squadron performed physical training as a unit, from herself down to the junior enlisted. 'I think today is Cardio day, cause damn my wrist hurts...' and so the decision on a five mile formation run was formed.
A yawn escaped from her "Maybe a little nap will do me good... KIT set an alarm for 0900..."
As her eyes glued shut her commlink chirped to life... "Feth what is it now!"
"Lieutenant Commander Runo how can I assist you Sir or Ma'am"
"Ma'am this is...*static*... we...*static*... roster and...*static*... present position...*static*"
"Say again?" She sat up and repeated herself one more time before looking over at KIT-9 "I forgot KIT, what was the result of that diagnostic I asked you to run earlier?"
The cat like droid looked her and blinked its visual sensors "Reow"

[member="Utena Calvarona"]
[member="SC-4486"]
[member="Alva Calvarona"]
[member="Tanomas Graf"]
[member="Cole Dagos"]

 

[Alva Calvarona]

[member="Tanomas Graf"] [member="Utena Calvarona"] [member="Kara Runo"] [member="SC-4486"] [member="Cole Dagos"] [member="Kaidan Hawk"]

As the turbolift rode down to the shuttle, Alva couldn't help but feel a sense of unease that she couldn't pin down. It didn't feel overly foreboding though she tried to ignore it for the time being. Unless the feeling persisted or grew worse then there likely wasn't an actual threat to worry herself about. However, the feeling that her sister might intercept her before she reached the landing platform for the building's shuttle transports was clear as she felt the other woman's force signature not too far off. There didn't appear to be urgency attached to Utena's approach so Alva hesitated over deciding to delay her departure to meet up with Moff Graf. If her sister caught up to her before she climbed into a speeder then she would take her with and talk with her then. If not she wouldn't worry about it too much, though she might feel bad if her sister appeared upset later.

 

[Kenrath]

Imperial Army HQ
0815

Cole watched briefly as the comm were set up. Walking over Cole triggered a planet wide burst transmission no words just beeps and whistles. When triggered it told the various outposts to switch methods of communication.

"Ok people initiate a net wide comm check."

Cole stood by as the first post checked in and then the second. It was all seemingly by the book. Each time a post checked in they coded in and their answer was checked against the roster for the day. That was until the sixth post a planetary communications station responded. Cole was about to move on until a Sergeant stepped up and spoke.

"Sir..................."

Cole turned looking at the man.

"Yes?"

The Sergeant cleared his throat.

"Sir something isn't right." "The last check.....the voice is wrong." "I was expecting to hear Cpl Jackson's voice Sir." "Jackson and I went through Basic together and he is godfather to my son. I would recognize his voice anywhere."

Cole frowned turning back to the station. The Major looked at the Roster the look on his face explaining everything.

"So the Sergeant is correct."

Cole turned looking at the console, the logs, and processing the new information. His minds moving faster than his hand. It all started to make sense to him and that made it worse.

"Communications issues, a compromised Communications station."


He paused.

"Get me a location on all of the members of High Command." "Specifically Princess [member="Alva Calvarona"] and Moff [member="Tanomas Graf"] ............ I need that info asap."

Turning back towards the Sergeant Cole nodded to the man.

"Quietly take a squad to that Station.....get a visual." "Do not engage just get me the intel and get out."


Cole turned back to the Major.

"Raise the Alert level..............only one level for now until the Sergeant get's back."


[member="Utena Calvarona"] [member="Kara Runo"] [member="SC-4486"] [member="Kaidan Hawk"]

Spoiler: Summary of Actions

1. Suspicious comm reply triggers unease

2. The Princess and Moff will receive a location request from Army Command on the Army Command Frequency.

3. A squad of Troopers will recon the now Insurgent controlled Communications station.

4. All Imperials with get a Flash Notification of the raised threat level status.