Sturm reentered the same briefing room he had entered less than a month ago; the same one where he had been briefed for the mission targeting Oracle. This time, however, he was one of the last ones in. Nix already stood at the front of the room, along with several intimidating people clad in olive uniforms: Rebel Special Forces officers. Glancing around those seated, Sturm recognized several from the previous mission. He sat down next to Mando.

“All right, now that you’re all here,” said Nix, staring at Sturm, “we can start the briefing. As you all know, this is an exercise to test your abilities as infiltrators. However, this is also a test for our base security personnel, who will be simulating an evacuation of this base. Your task is to find and capture the base control center, which is where I’ll be present.”

Someone in the back chuckled. Nix smiled.

“Oh, you think it’ll be easy huh? For the purpose of this scenario, I have moved the BCC to a new location, so no, it won’t be that easy to find. That’ll be a task all in itself, besides evading and neutralizing our security personal. For the purposes of this scenario, everyone’s blasters are being set on stun, and only stun weapons can be used. Furthermore, none of the infiltrators can be captured. If one of you can be caught or held for over five minutes, the game is over, and base security wins.”

One of the guys groaned. The base commander bared an almost feral grin.

“What?” said Nix, “I shouldn’t give them an as reasonable chance for victory? It’s difficult, I’ll admit. But it won’t get an easier than this…”



A half hour later, Sturm found himself nearly ten kilometers away from the base, along with the rest of the infiltrators. “Stormy” had present because he had done a similar mission in actuality on Thyferra, unlike the bulk of Ariston. Thus, he would be an adviser, not limited by the commands of the squad’s leader, who turned out to be Mando. That being said, both would have to cooperate in order to be successful. Sturm strolled down a knoll to where Mando was with an automap.

“So how do you plan to approach the base?”

" 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."

A blaster bolt whizzed right past Ryan's head, followed by sporadic bursts from around the treetops. Sturm instinctively dove head first into the nearest bush; landing with a grunt and a thud; leaves blinded him; sticks and rocks tore at his camouflaged poncho. It's all fun and games until someone crashes the party. He sneezed. Am I allergeric to this stuff or something? He pushed the thought out of his mind and fumbled for his carbine. Those weren't stun bursts; those weren't our men, I hope. What am I thinking? He struggled to pull out his droid from his backpack, which he promptly threw into the air.

The remote's repulsorlifts slightly whined as it adjusted to the sudden increase in altitude. As quickly as it had rose, the simple-minded droid began to stream live holo-feed to Sturm's datapad. Sturm watched the holo-feed as the droid homed in and identified a set of people in the trees, who were slowly filtering out of the area; their ambush apparently not as successful as they had planned. Sturm froze one of the live images and zoomed in on it. It looks like that guy has an Imperial uniform; really old army uniform, but's it's so torn and dirty...could be anything. As the firing between the two groups faded down to nothing, he experimented with the picture analyzation software. He finally got a good zoom on one of the shots. Imperial navy fatigues...SSD Knighthammer... He tapped his comlink.

"We may have to alter our mission somewhat..."

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."

Sturm fiddled around with the remote’s settings…Where is that? Ah, there we go. Search. Some kilometers away from him, the simplistic droid began to scout ahead of the group with its sensors; trying to track the group’s ambushers. It wouldn’t be easy, but it would be done after some time. His immediate concern done, Sturm rose out of the bush looking somewhat disheveled, and promptly walked towards the other members of Ariston. Several Ariston members dragged a pair of stunned men towards them. Sturm turned to Mando.

“Have you ever done a field interrogation? We don’t exactly have any truth drugs or equipment like that, but we do have some mind games we can play with them if we need to…”



Labour Outpost, Yavin IV

The nearly sixty men crammed into the basement of the cafeteria in Yavin’s old, abandoned Labour Outpost. The base had laid abandoned even as the SSD Knighthammer crumbled up in orbit over the planet during the Daala’s failed attack on the Academy. Several escape pods from that ship had managed to land on Yavin IV; their survivors eking out a meager existence until they rediscovered the abandoned base, which provided some measure of creature comfort; enough for their bare survival at least. One of the ex-Imperial sailors leaned against an empty crate.

“They got Fisk and Spanner,” said the man, “everyone else is accounted for.”

“Yeah,” grumbled Tyris, “though my rear is a bit bruised…just joking. Dragging my stunned body away probably wasn’t the easiest thing; thanks guys, I appreciate it.”

Sitra snorted, “You’d better. I’m not so sure we’ll be so lucky. And we’ve just ruined our element of surprise. I don’t think that was an Alliance scouting expedition. They fought and responded far too well to just be that.”

“Fisk and Spanner are going to talk,” mumbled Tyris, “the rebs are going to find and wipe us out…it’s just a matter of time.”

“And that’s how the last of Daala’s command goes?” questioned Sitra, “we manage to evade the Jedi for decades only to be wiped out by a bunch of new grunts? We can take them. We know the land better, we know the buildings better. We can set an ambush up.”

Tyris winced. “We can’t win a prolonged fight with them.”

Sitra managed a weak smile, “We don’t have to. You think these people would kill there own?”

“What are suggesting?”

“They come here, and we capture a few, and hold them hostage to get off planet.”

“That simple,” said Sitra, “it won’t be easy, but I think we can pull it off. And besides, what other option do we have? They’ll just keep on hunting us till we’re all dead.”

"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..."

Ryan let Sturm interrogate the man. What happened to the imperials was not his particular concern right now. He didn't know how many other imps were out there right now.

" Set up a defensive perimeter. Cross your lines of sight. Don't let anything move without your permission."

The infiltrators moved to carry out his order. The green quiet of the land was deceivingly peaceful and gave no indication of the murderous attempt that had occurred minutes ago. Ryan turned back to Sturm and the two prisoners. The scar upon his face tightened with a scowl as he turned his burning eyes upon them. Sturm's method of interrogation was, though not exactly practical, effective. The mercenary's face remained unmovable as Sturm told an obviously painful part of the man's history. Sturm and Korr weren't so different. They had both lost someone they loved through imperial methods of tyranny. One through carelessness, the other through deliberation. That was the reason why Ryan hated those tyrannic, white coated, plastic, bucketheads. It pained him too much to remember the circumstances. That beautiful valley, then the raging firestorm, and finally her dead body. Killed because she didn't know the prisoners who had escaped. She had known nothing, but they still murdered her. Downright coldblooded murder.

Ryan's eyes grew fiercer. He watched with immovability as the man who called himself Fisk ' who picks these nicknames?' was blasted by Sturm. The blue flash had alerted Ryan to the nature of the shot. It was stun only. Korr stepped over to the man called Edward Eanmo as Sturm commed HQ.

" Tell me Edward, you have a family?"

The man stared at Ryan with wide eyes. " Yes." He trembled.

" Good. Tell me, have you ever been shot before?"

" N-no."

" So you don't know what it feels like?"

" N-no."

" Good." Ryan pulled his pistol from its belt. The imperial's eyes widened with horror.

" No wait! Don't kill me!"

Ryan scoffed. " I'm not going to kill you, yet." The hardened man put his pistol against the quivering hand of the man and pressed the barrel so hard into the imperial's hand that he pinned it to the ground. " I am going to count to five and if I don't have the name of your commander, where your imp buddies are, and what your plan is, then you can say hello to a cybernetic implant. One."

" ALRIGHT ALRIGHT! I'll tell you! Just don't shoot me." The frightened man began to speak as fast as his lips would let him. " We were supposed to kill the leader of this infiltrator group and we failed, or team is somewhere around here."

" Thats not good enough. Two."

" I don't know anymore!"

" Funny how that knowledge changes. Three."

" DON'T SHOOT ME!"

" I will if I don't get the information, don't worry, your not going to die. It will just hurt, real bad. Four."

" Alright! I'll tell you everything."

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?"

Ryan peered at the picture. Attacking from the front was far to risky. Not only would it most likely be noisy getting over the walls, but it would be a hassle to get past those security cameras. Then he saw the back portion of the facility. It was wide open. But it was probably heavily guarded. Suddenly, an idea was born in Ryan's mind. A twisted smile spread itself across his face. He put the datapad of the skyeye into a holoprojector and it was spat onto the surface of the ground. The mercenary pointed to building closest to them.

" This is the closest building to us, but there is a significant problem. It would be very hard to get over, or through the walls without being noticed in some way." Korr shifted his hand to the open section. " They have no border wall here, it is where they are at their weakest. So they probably have nerfed up security there. However, if we create a diversion at the living facilities, we can draw men away from the open section, leaving it vulnerable to attack." Ryan let his hand fall to his side and stared around at the group. " The easiest way to create a diversion would be some form of an explosion. A thermal detonator would be the most optimal. If someone were to fire it from a distance from a grenade launcher it would be ample distraction. A second team would travel around to the open section, wait for the explosion, eliminate the guards and neutralize this threat." Ryan paused then turned to Sturm. " Anything else we should be aware of before proceeding?"

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.