Tzhali made a sprint across the ground and quickly stopped and scanned the area, his hands clentched his rifle as he looked down the scope... all clear

He made a gesture and the group continued

Lumier was far ahead of the group. She was the fastest amoung them, but her speed also proved to be her weakness. She had spotted a Trandoshan hiding behind a hill, the Tran was looking down the barrel of its rifle slowly tracking, who she quickly thought was Tzhali.

She shouldered her rifle and took out her knife and crept up behind the Trandoshan, "Spying on someone is no fun, why not shot?", she said with a sarcastic tone, the trandoshan spun around and pulled out the pistol and fired. The round missed Lumier by a fraction of an inch but it did manage to scar her. She rammed her knife into the Trandoshan's chest, then racked it away making a clear cut. The trandoshan then fell to the ground.. dead..

"I hope thats the last one, thats 4 incountered. There are usually 5, where the other one", she said looking around. "Unless the one other turned tail and ran, heh, I wouldn't be surprised if it did", she said and unshouldered her rifle then took off toward the shuttle landing cordinates

She looked over her shoulder and saw Tzhali and the group following, althought they where a good 3 minutes from her. She skidded to a fault and throw herself onto the group, staring down her rifle she spotted a large group of Trandoshans incoming to her position... then she saw the shuttle roar over the group, which quickly ducked for cover and started firing on the shuttle itself.

She pulled the pin back on her rifle, then fired a round which tore into a Trandoshan, then fired another round which blew the head off another enemy.

The shuttle made a low over pass, making sure the LZ was clear... which it wasn't

**

"You sure about this?", Said the co-pilot

The pilot looked at him, "No... but its the only flat area around, and those Tran's know that to"

"I'll keep the guns trained on them, we I'll have to shut those guns done sooner or later, or we won't have any power to make it back up to the Destroyer", The co-pilot said

"They better hurry, that destroyer is going to 'burn' this whole area in less than 6 minutes", The pilot said

"Planetary Bombardment!?", The C-Pilot yelled turning and looking at the pilot, "There nutz! We don't have authorization to do that!!"

"Apprently they do, and besides... we have 5 squads of fighters approuching fast they'll be within the firing arc of the destroyers main guns", He said, "Besides, the captain is more than likely bring in some wookies anyway, who cares if some Trandoshans die"

The co-pilot sank into his seat, he was the only one on that craft that knew the captain was bringing Trandoshans on board, and that was just a gut feeling. His other feelings was this, why where the Trandoshans so interested in keeping them on ground? And what was that gerbaled message they had picked up several minutes before about a Rebellion. That thought continued to race in his mind

"Prepare the landing structs", The pilot said

The co-pilot nodded, the ladning structs came out and they soon touched ground.. the cockpit facing the on coming Trandoshans.

"Fire those guns", the pilot said

The sight of the shuttle under fire made Naosha's mouth go even drier, her heart filling with dread.

"Looks like we need to help them clear the landing field." Silliss said, a sly grin forming on his reptialian muzzle. He ordered the long range weapon users to form up along on side of the group: the side facing their Trandoshan foes, and start firing. He wanted to send in some of the melee fighters, having noticed their eagerness for battle, but felt it would be too risky at this time considering the unknown feelings toward Trandoshans the Wookiees piloting the shuttle had: they couldn't risk losing anyone.

"Keep your eyes peeled." He said to the reminder of the group as a full blown firefight ensued. "This could be only part of the forces they sent out to intercept us."

Finally the shuttle was able to land and the group approached it but stopped a few meters away as a precaution: many in the group suspected that the only reason the shuttle wasn't firing on 'them' was because Tzhali was standing in front of them.

Meanwhile the firefight had died down, what was left of the opposing force having retreated: for how long no one knew. There were a couple of injuries on their side, but Trandoshans...especially members of the K'Satikur Clan, whose members were trained to take damage without even flenching, where made of very tough stuff and carried their injuries with no sign of pain on their faces. Instead, their expressions were of pride.

"This is likely only a temporary reprieve." Silliss hissed. "The sooner we get on that shuttle and out of here the better to keep casualities low. Why haven't they opened the door yet?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Naosha said. "They are not sure if we are friend or foe...possibly even think we are holding their Captain hostage..."

"Can't exactly blame them for that assumption if that is the case..." Silliss grumbled, knowing all too well how many Wookiees saw them.

Tzhali approuched the shuttle. The door opened only half way, a wookie cruched, holding a crossbow in his hand.

"Theres no need for that", Tzhali said in a cool tone, "These Trandoshans are friends", he said in his wookie dialect

"Friends?", The other wookie said. The door opening completely. "We didn't know if they had you hostage or not"

"Would I have called for a shuttle if I was a hostage? Would Lumier be standing right next to you with he..... LUMIER!", Tzhali growled

Lumier returned her hand back to her rifle, "Sorry... sir...."

Tzhali sighed. Then cleared his throat, and looked back at the group ,"Advise them to get onboard the shuttle", he said then began walking up the ramp

Lumier nodded and walked over to the group of Trandoshans, "Tzhali said that he suggest's you get on board.. we don't know how many more are out there or if any more are coming", she said, That pilot is hiding something, she spuanted her eyes, He is keeping something from Tzhali and I don't like it, she said then loaded up her rifle.. she pulled the firing pin down and heard a satisfieing clack. The clack was loud enough to cause two of the children to jump in shock, she then glanced over her shoulder. "Sorry about that", she said before running over to the shuttle

Something's not right about that pilots anger.. how could he NOT know about our arrival.. how could he NOT know about Tzhali's temporaly alliance with the Trandoshans.. and why is that he seemed.. out of place, what is a LT doing commanding a shuttle, the thoughts raced through her mind, Unless... unless he's NOT a member of our crew at all!, she said, Blast how could I have missed it... He must be a spy!, she said to herself and slamed her fist into one of the landing structs, which bent just slightly due to her streangh

Silliss motioned for the group to start boardng the shuttle, agreeing with Lumier's assessment. However, he noticed in her body language that she seemed troubled and suspicious. Not at them he recognized, but something else. He shook his head, feeling getting everyone on board on off the planet was a bigger priority, but decided to keep his senses alert.

When everyone was nearly on board he noticed one of the kids, Trissan, was lingering by the door, sniffing with interest at something there. Thinking the known troublemaker was just being mischievous again, he walked over and scooped up the youngster. He was about to move away when he noticed something: there was blood on the hinges. Kneeling down and let his ofactory senses take the scent in and identified it as human blood. Poking his head outside, he looked at Lumier, who was uninjuried and was with them during the fight...so even if she had been injuried it wouldn't be hers.

A snarl came to his lips as many questions started popping up in his head. Looking at Lumier again, he motioned to her to come take a look.

While he waited for her, he pulled one of the last boarding warriors to the side. "Toll ovoryeno te bo en year gaurd..." he whispered in Clan Dialect to him, passing Trissan off to him in the process. The warrior nodded, not questioning his judgment and went to spread the word.

"A human has been injured...at least...very recently here." He said in a low voice when Lumier was by his side, pointing to the blood stains. "And the crew of this shuttle is two Wookiees...something is not right here..."

Lumier stared at the blood stain for a second then nodded, "You're right", she said in a low tone, "Plus, the ship that was going to pick us up had two humans on board.. but instead there are two wookies on board", she moved her hand toward her pistol

"What's wrong Lumier?", Tzhali said walking up to her, his hand still gripping his rifle with a tight grip

Lumier gestured toward the blood stain, and Tzhali nodded. "Hmmm... two wookies on board, and this shuttle is suppost to have two humans on board instead", he said and started thinking, "Lumier, watch the pilots closely, if they make any sudden 'threatening' move... deal with them", he said

Lumier nodded and started walking toward the cockpit, she stopped when she noticed some crates to the side, she then turned and looked at Tzhali, "Sir... what are crates doing on this transport?", she asked

Tzhali narrowed his eyes, in confusion. "Crates?", he said and walked over to the crates, and looked the crates over and noticed a few labels that said "Food" and "Water", but something seemed out of place, "Lumier look in you're pack I remember placing a list of items that we had on this trip", he asked

Lumier nodded and opened her pack and retreived the list then handed it to Tzhali

"No mension of food or water anywhere on this list, so then what are these crates doing here?", He asked confused

--

Kasandra laid back in the command chair, "How's the preping going?", She asked

"Preping is nearing completion, the transport should be ready in T-Minus 2 minutes", The com officer said

Kasandra noticed that there was a lot of activity at sensor operations, she got up and walked over and placed her hand on the young officers shoulder, "Whats wrong?"

"Well, at first I thought it was a glitch or something in the sensor array", she started, "but... it seems that we already have a transport down on the surface"

"Another one? You mean the one that dropped them off?", Kasandra asked

"Thats what I thought at first", the officer said, "but I ran a quick scan of the ship and am getting some very disturbing reading, one is showing the call sign of one of our rival clans, another one is picking up low levels of radiation"

"Low levels? The only items that give off low levels of radiation are the explosives we use to breach starship armor when boarding", she said," wait... are you saying?"

"Its possible, the rad counter is slowly rising meaning that its getting close to the point where the explosives WILL explode", the officer said

"How long?", Kasandra asked getting very nervous

"5... perhaps 6 minutes", The officer said, "And no way to contact the transport to to warn the Captain"

"I know how to warn him.. its a sign he tought me to use when ever we couldn't communicate", she said and turned her attention to the weapons officer, "BRING ORBITAL CANNON ONE TO BEAR!"

The weapons officer stiffened and looked at her in shock, "Ma'am!? You do realize what you're telling me right!?", The officer said

"DO IT!", she yelled with the authority of a general in her voice

The weapons officer turned her attention back to weapons

On the republic destroyer a turret on the bottom part of the ship swivaled and turned toward the planet, it stopped and its cannon slowly turned downward

"Weapon in postion ma'am, firing at a postion roughly 9 miles south, southeast of the transports postion.. the blast radius is only 3.5 miles so they won't be harmed", The weapons officer said

Kasandra nodded, "Alright.. to minimize radiation levels, set the cannons plasma intact to high and laser to low", she said

"Making corrections now", the weapons officer said, her hands dancing across the console, "correction made, ready to fire"

"Fire!", She yelled

A small green ball of light appeared on the cannons tip and slowly collected

"20 seconds", The weapons officer said

The ball of green light grew bigger, red light now appeared in the middle

"15 seconds"

As the red light drew another source of light appeared on the edge of the ball, it glowly a sickly blue color

"10 seconds"

Tendrils of purple light shot out of the space around the cannon and where being collected by the cannons own intact nod's which focused the light it collected into the ball of green energy

"5 seconds"

The energy then shrank, and for a second it stayed that way.. then shot out in a line pattern headed straight toward the planet below

"Plasma blast away!", The weapons officer yelled, heat rushed over everyone on the ship

--

"This is squad delta where approuching the transport now.. eta one minute", said a fighter pilot

"6 fighters against one transport.. this'll be a cakewalk", said another pilot

"INCOMING!!!!", yelled another pilot

Tzhali was outside the shuttle checking everything out when a large explosion caught his attention to the south, southeast
it wasn't the explosion that took his attention, it was the way it exploded and the color. He threw his rifle over his shoulder
and made his way into the ship, "Time to force those pilots to take us up", he said and unholstered his pistol

One of the Trandoshan enginers in the group was double checking to ensure she didn't lose any of the equipement she brought with her during that sprint. She went through the stuff again when she noticed her guiter (sp) counter was missing. When she didn't find it, she went looking for it around the shuttle first. She quickly found it...in the hands of Trissan, who apparently thought the piece of equipement was funny...as it keep making funny noises when he put it near the crates in the cargo holds.

At first she was annoyed and reached to snatch the device away from the mischievous youngster. Wait... she thought, freezing in her tracks. The device is reacting to those crates.... She snatched the device from Trissan, who gave a loud protest in response but she ignored him, and read the read out on it. Her eyes widdened in horror...she snatched up Trissan, who protested at THAT as well...and ran out of the cargo hold.

...

"Calm down..." Silliss said, not understanding what the frantic female was saying. "If you don't I'll never understand what you are trying to say."

The female took a moment to steady herself, Trissan still hooked under one of her arms.

"There are...explosives on this ship..." she finally said.

"What?" Silliss said, eyes widdening with disbelief. "Where?"

"Cargo hold...in the crates. Trissan was playing with my counter and it was going off around them. I noticed on the read out that the rad counter is slowly increasing....meaning whats in those crates are likely set to go up when the radiation reaches a certain level...."

"How long do we have."

She looked at the counter again. "Four minutes..."

Silliss muttered some explectives under his breath. Tzhali was just entering the shuttle then, his pistol drawn. At first Silliss thought they were double crossed...but when he took a better look at his expression he realized Tzhali was after someone else...not them. Still, he grabbed his arm to draw his attention. "Whomever you are after...they can wait...we have bigger problems..."

Tzhali stopped and looked at the Trandoshan, "What could possibly be worse than being on a ship that's more than likely not you're own?", He asked

"How about having explosives on you're ship set to go off in four minutes before anyone realizes it?", Silliss said

"Explosives? On board? Where!?", Tzhali said getting serious

"Remember those crates of Food and Water?", Silliss asked

"Yea, what about them", Tzhali said.. he then made since of it all, "Crates full of explosives.. great", he said in disbelief. He walked over to the crates in question and knelt down, "If there anything like the explosives wookies make then if we open the crates, we'll die", he said with a moan afterwords, "How to get rid of these crates without becoming a burnt corpse's in the process", he said trying to think fast

--

Lumier was in the cockpit examining everything, making sure it was ok

The co-pilot looked at her, "Ready when you are", he said to her hoping that she wouldn't notice that his hand was over the communications tab, which was set for another channal other than there own cap ship channal

"Well they got on the ship somehow..." Silliss grumbled, trying to think of something. "Can't we just move them and not try to open them?"

...

Naosha studied the alert faces of the warriors around her, realizing something must be up. When she overheard Silliss and Tzhali's coversation she knew what was going on. She dropped her head into her hands: apparently even the peace loving wookiees had their own backstabbing political factions.

She looked toward the cockpit, then stood up and headed toward it, entering it just as the co-pilot said they were ready.

"We are not going anywhere until your lovely explosives are taken off the ship." She growled.

The co-pilot looked genuinely surprised, as did Lumier, who reached for her pistol. The pilot however, while he did look surprised...it was a surprise of having been 'caught'. When he moved for his weapon, Naosha had her pistol trained on him immediately...Lumier following suit.


"Now...I may be a politician..." Naosha sneered. "But I am a dead shot...especially at this range." Naosha knew she was playing a dangerous game here: if this Wookiee was willing to be a martyr, holding a weaponing on him would do little good. The pilot hesitated a moment, but suddenly drew his weapon. Naosha threw herself to one side, firing one shot. Her movement saved her life, which caused the pilot's shot to stike the unfortunate co-pilot instead, but it messed up her own aim: instead of striking the pilot in the chest, it struck him in the shoulder. Lumier gladdly followed up, blasting the pilot with a few shots of her own. The pilot was quickly a smoking, lifeless ball of fur.

Lumier was about to finish off the co-pilot, but Naosha stopped her.

"Don't. He did not know about the explosives." She said.

"How can you be sure?" Lumier asked.

Naosha smiled. "In the field of politics...you learn to look past the words and see the truth in the body langauge."

Naturally the sound of gun fire brought a few warriors running into the cockpit. "Everything here is already taken care off." Naosha said. She looked back at the dead pilot. "We need a new pilot though..."

Lumier nodded, "I can pilot this, plus other than Tzhali, I'm the only other person on board who can land this thing without any difficult", difficulty in question being that when the transport approuch's the ship she'll need to transmite a 20 Alpha/Numerice code or else the ship will open fire, sorta like a safty precaution

Tzhali heard the shots, but dismissed them and looked the crate over, "We can move it", he said, "But.. it'll take both of us to get it off the ship", he said placing his hand under the crate, both him and Silliss picked the crate up and slowly walked off the shuttle and placed it on the ground.

Tzhali ran his hand over his face, as him and Silliss walked back onto the shuttle Tzhali heard a sound, sorta like something whisling in the air. He turned around and looked out, and to his surprise peices of multiple fighters rained down, cockpits, wings, engines componants, unexploded missles, laser cores(which hadn't exploded yet), everything.. which wasn't good

"Lets get the last crate", Tzhali said, Silliss nodded and they both picked up the last crate and brought it outside, avoiding all the bits and peices of debris that had littered the landscape

They placed the crate on the ground, and quickly ran back to the shuttle. When they where on he walked over to the cockpit, he saw Lumier in the pilot seat and the corpse of the pilot on the ground. "Ya know, why havn't you removed this?", he asked Lumier

"Because we need to get off this planet before more enemy's arrive", she said starting up the engine

Tzhali nodded and turned toward Naosha, "I would suggest you check and make everyone is on board, I don't want to 'accidently' leave someone behind"

Naosha nodded and left the cockpit, holstering her pistol as she went. She and Silliss did a head count and found everyone was on board...save for Trissan. A quick frantic search ensued and they found the youth outside, playing with one of the pieces of debris.

"We are going to have to put a leash on you..." Naosha said sternly as she scooped the youth up. Movement in the distance caught her eye. Her blue eyes squinting, she saw a Trandoshan out in the distance, partly covered by a rock. She saw the gun pointing her way...and worse yet...she recognized the Tran behind it.

"Besk..." She breathed, her eyes going wide with terror. She knew he was a former member of the Clan...and that he hated Rissonik. She also knew...that she had erred in coming out here alone: in her frantic search for her grandson she didn't think to bring a guard with her.

Naosha didn't think, just acted. She pulled out her pistol and fired a few shots in Besk's direction as she turned and fled back toward the ship: since she didn't really aim she doubted any would hit him...but hoped to at least make Besk hesitate long enough for her to escape.

She wasn't that far from the ship to start with...but it seemed like miles away to her at that moment. Even further when she heard Besk take his shot. Instinctively she drove to the side adn cried out when the bolt grazed her leg. She lost her grip on her pistol when she hit the ground, the weapon sliding on the ground a few feet away from her. Trissan, now free from his grandmothers grasp, thankfully beelined into the ship. Naosha however, not having the warrior's training to ignore pain, was struggling to get back up to her feet: it was more the shock of having been injured then the injury itself.

Fortunately before Besk could finish her off, Lumier saw the trouble and trained the ships lasers on his position. Silliss rushed out and carried the wounded councilor back into the shuttle, part of him wanting to scold her right then and there for going out alone...but knew this wasn't the time for it.

"Let's get going!" He called out, closing the ships door. "He may not be the only one out there!"