Five minutes earlier

"We're gaining on them, Sir." Eight was still at point, tracking the footprints. It wasn't hard with the number of beings that made up their quarry - at least not for a tracker like Eight. Wes could barely pick up the signs of passage.

"How far?" he asked.

"Two minutes, maybe less. Four, five hundred meters." They were talking quietly anyway, so there was no risk of being heard yet anyway, but the news softened their tones even more.

Wes squinted his eyes. There was a fork in the passage here. "Which way?"

Eight studied the ground, then the tunnels themselves. "Well, they took the right-hand passage. But if we take the left-hand route, we might be able to get ahead of them. It's shorter."

Wes thought for a minute. "Alright. Split the squadron. Flight Two, you're with me. We'll track them through the tunnels. One and Three, take the shorter route. Try to cut them off. Now move!"

The squadron split up, with five troopers tracking the escapees and the remaining eight heading to the left to cut them off.

Present

Wes and his flight trotted up to where Selere held the struggling prisoner. The Grays looked downcast, and Wes knew that they'd lost their quarry. "What happened?"

Selere replied, "We took the tunnel like you said. Came up nearly right on top of them, but they'd already passed. This...thing turned and rushed us. Took out four guys before we subdued it."

Wes glanced at the wounded men. "Did a darn good job of it, too. Just like a beast. And the rest?"

"Gone. Vanished into the tunnels."

Eight sighed and stood. She'd been examining the ground for any sort of track, but this section of the tunnels was clean. The look on her face told Wes all he needed to know. The spies were gone.

"Stang!" he cursed. "Alright. Patch up the wounded best you can. We've got a prisoner. That should be good enough. We'll get what we need out of it." The Aqualesh had begun to come around, and Wes, removing his helmet, stared into its face. "Think it's smart enough to know anything?" he asked to no one in particular.

J-3 understood Wes's words perfectly, though, and the only response Wes got was Aqualesh spit in his eye. "You kriffing piece of crap!" he yelled as he rubbed his eye. A booted toe connected with the alien's stomach, then an armored fist smashed into its face. The alien once again slipped into unconsciousness.

"Darn that thing!" Wes yelled again. "Selere, carry it. If it gives you any more trouble, start cutting off body parts. Make it hurt. Bad. The rest of you, help the wounded. Let's head back and salvage what we can.

Company Headquarters, two hours later

"Yes, Major, we captured one of them. The prison confirmed it's not one of there's. Must be one of the spies."

Wes stared at the silent comlink for a few seconds, waiting for a response. When nothing came, he said, "Sir?"

That elicited a response. "Captain, have you gotten any information out of it yet?"

"Nothing, Sir," he replied. "Bottled up as soon as he saw the uniforms."

The major sighed. "Alright. I'm sending some boys over to pick him up. He's no longer your problem."

Wes's eyes widened with incredulity. "Pardon me, Sir, but I'd like some more time with the prisoner. After all, his guys did kill six of my men and seriously wounded some others. I think it is my responsibility to..."

"Captain," the superior officer interrupted, "Are you questioning my orders? I said not to question the prisoner any further. You are not to talk with it. Am I making myself clear?"

Wes's jaw hardened. "Yes, Sir."

J-1 opened his eyes, gradually adjusting to the faint light in his room. Through the blur, he could see a fan gently spinning overhead, causing the faint light to flicker amd sting his eyes. He tried to roll over on his side, but felt a stabbing pain and stayed how he was.

He could hear movement next to him. "Report..." J-1 murmured.

There came no reply. At length, J-4 spoke up. "We... we lost J-5. He's been taken prisoner."

J-1 stayed silent. With or without the pain paralysing his movement, there was nothing to say.

"Everyone else is accounted for, we shook the pursuers. Xarrin wants to talk to you once you're well enough. J-6 is just dropping off the rescued prisoners now."

"What about Grewal?"

"He seems a little catatonic to me. Currently he's under guard nearby, awaiting questioning."

Finally, J-1 turned to face J-4. The Cerean seemed dishevelled but relieved, and along with him were J-2 and J-5. J-2 extended his hand to J-1, lifting him up and supporting him as they walked out of their makeshift quarters. Though J-1 still felt pain running up and down his body, he limped along with the team.



J-6 smiled proudly to Xarrin, even if his joy was cut with the tragedy of J-3's loss. "All recovered and accounted for," he said, while gesturing to the prisoners that stood behind him. They were still clad in the unmarked prison uniforms, and were scraggly and unkempt to a man, but a few were starting to catch on that they were no longer in prison - and a few of them seemed worried by this fact.

Xarrin was in the old war room, looking at the prisoners from across the old holographic table. As he examined the released prisoners, holographic pictures of them drifted above the board. "So you got all of them? Good job."

Two of Xarrin's gang members entered the war room. One was bearded, bald, and wore a pair of wrap-around sunglasses even in the darkness of the undercity. The other had lost an arm and most of his face in service to the Republic, and was mostly painfully obvious cybernetic replacement parts. The two of them toted heavy repeaters from shoulder straps, and started yanking some of the men out of the prisoner group.

J-6 seemed surprised. "What are you going do with them?"

"That prison you broke into was for Imperial prisoners, big guy," said Xarrin, as he lit up a half-finished Cigarra. "Some of these guys were in there for spying for us, which means they're our friends and we're going to help 'em out. Some of 'em, though, are just Imperials who're arrested for other crimes and who happen to know things we want. Those ones we'll give the mercy their captors never did, once we've got what we need from them."

J-6's eyes widened, and rolled through a cacophy of colour before returning to normal. "I thought we were there to rescue your captured comrades!"

"Yeah, you were - mostly." Xarrin walked around the holographic table to stand before J-6. "Don't look so surprised, Azguard. We do what we have to, and so long as you're my guest, you'll help me survive down here no matter how much it fucks with your high-and-mighty religion. You've caused me enough trouble already."

J-6 twitched his fingers a few times, feeling his claws descend and retract, before turning on his heel and storming out of the room. J-1 passed him in the hall outside, looking at his agent with surprise, but dismissing his anger for now.

Xarrin's grim expression broke into a smile as J-1 limped into the room. "Steve! So good to see you. I had my doubts but your boys really pulled through on that last one. I'm sorry about your-"

"Let's just move ahead, shall we?" said J-1, who limped past Xarrin to the holographic table. "We need to start planning the next move."

"Of course," said Xarrin. The grizzled gangster crossed the floor to the other side of the table. "Have you talked to Grewel yet?"

"No," said J-1. "I've got a feeling he'll be the break in the case, though. We'll have to lay low and recover our strength before another operation. Tell your men to stay belowground and avoid the train if they can, our security might be compromised."

"You think your guy'll talk?"

"What? No, he can't even talk when he wants to without a good translating device. Those commandos were all over us, though, and that's twice in a row. That police contact might have turned on us, and if not, there's gotta be a leak nearby. Either way, we're going to have to keep a lower than usual profile."

"What am I supposed to do until then? It's hard enough to scrape a living at the bottom of the food chain, it doesn't get any easier if we can't go up-top."

"My men are getting pretty cozy down here. If any of them are up to it, you can borrow them in the meantime to pull a few jobs and keep your head above water. Once we do this next operation we'll be out of your hair and the heat should go with us."

"So you're willing to get your hands dirty, eh? You sure that's a good idea? Your men are up to it, but you're already down one, you sure you want to risk-"

"There will be no more incidents," said J-1, with surprising coldness. Enough to make even Xarrin start. "I'm going to take the information we need from Grewel. I'll be back once I find out where to go next."

Xarrin watched the agent as he limped out of the room with a lingering curiosity. As he reached the door, Xarrin called out "Hey, Steve."

J-1 turned to face him. "You know I was wrong about you, you're tougher than I thought. A lot harder, too. What changed your mind?"

"Nothing's changed," said J-1. "If you knew me, you'd know that."

"Oh really? So I guess you think your teammates do know you? Keep an eye on them, J-1, and see if I'm wrong."

Wondering just what the old man was talking about, J-1 left the war room behind him. Sure, J-3's loss weighed on his mind, but there was nothing he could do about it right now. And what did he mean, keep an eye on them? Did Xarrin think one of his spies could be the leak?

J-1 realized how long it'd been seen he'd thought of Gale.

Wes stood with his head officers staring at the speeder that was even now disappearing into the traffic of Coruscant. His jaw was set, and the five men around him knew that now was not the time to interrupt him. He was on the verge of exploding.

Not ten minutes before, a military speeder had docked with Wes's temporary headquarters and disgorged two Colonels from Intelligence along with their military escorts. Wes had been ordered to deliver the alien that had been responsible for the deaths of at least six of his men. Wes hadn't even had a chance to interrogate him properly, and he was royally ticked.

They stood there in silence, knowing that the first one to speak would probably receive nothing more than a backhand across the face. And Wes's backhands weren't light. So they waited for him to break the silence.

Wes may have been silent, but his mind was not still. He was still replaying the Intelligence visit. They had come barging in, not even regarding his greetings.

The speeder docked and opened. The military brass, one old fart and a younger man, came out first, followed by their 24-trooper escort. Wes and an honor guard of the remaining six members of Green Squadron stood on the docking platform awaiting them, though Wes wasn't too happy about it.

As the Colonels approached, Wes saluted, but the senior officers ignored him and brushed right past. Offended, Wes barely managed to keep his temper under control. He was already incensed that his prisoner was being stolen out from under his nose; now these kriffing officers were snubbing him. As if his men's sacrifice didn't matter. As if he was a lesser soldier.

That probably offended him the most. An Imperial officer was expected to salute his superiors, so Wes had done exactly what was expected. However, the blatant disregard of Imperial courtesy had him boiling. But he dutifully followed the Colonels inside.

"Where the kriff is the prisoner?" one asked. The first words out of his mouth, and it only served to make Wes hotter.

"Yeah, Captain," the other one sneered. "We were told he'd be here ready for us."

Wes managed to keep his voice level, though how he didn't know. "Sir, the prisoner is waiting for you. We had to keep him bound; he's already decommissioned three of my men during the capture and two more since he's been here. I can't afford to lose any more."

"You'll afford what we say you'll afford, Captain." The Colonel emphasized the rank as though his Intelligence position made him superior.

"Sir, with all due respect, I was not aware that I was reporting to you now." Wes knew that his response would probably come back to haunt him, but it was the nicest he could manage at the moment. Green Two, who stood behind him, barely managed to mask a laugh under a pretense of coughing.

The Colonels, duly put back in their place, quickly finished their business, signed the release papers, and transferred the Aqualesh prisoner into their custody. As they were departing, Wes gathered his officers for a meeting.

So there they stood, waiting for Wes to give them some kind of instructions. The problem was that the only thing Wes could think of doing was illegal and bordered on treason. But it was the only way. He took a deep breath and turned to face them.

"Captain Sephios, Commander Thrahrn, Commander Nayng, Commander Selere, Lieutenant Lomax. We have a bit of a problem, and I want your ideas on how to deal with it. We've not only lost our quarry, we just lost our only hope of figuring out where they will strike next. What do we do?"

Selere, the commander of Gray Squadron, spoke first. "I say we go back to where we lost them, pick up their trail if possible, and track them to their destination."

Nayng of Red Squadron countered that. "Not possible. You said yourself that your tracker couldn't find anything. We'd need a Sith to be able to track them now. Perhaps even the Grand Master himself."

"And I suppose you have a better idea?" asked Sephios, the XO of the company.

Thrahrn jumped in. "Probably not, but he's right. We won't be able to find them that way. I say we reinterrogate the cop. He might know more and is holding out on us."

Lieutenant Lomax, formerly Green Two (now Green Leader), replied, "That's possible, but not likely. He's been tortured within an inch of his life. Most cops aren't built to handle that. A better way might be to attempt to reconstruct the files from the computer terminal at the prison and see what the most recently viewed file was. That way we know who they were after, and if he's still there. That might give us a chance."

Commander Nayng added, "I agree. However, I also think we should do something a bit more shady. Sub-Lieutenant Nerkin is arguably the best slicer in the Empire. I think with a bit of time he could hack into Intelligence files and figure out where our prisoner is being held. Most likely that will be our opponent's next target; these aliens seem to have an unnatural affection for each other."

Wes smiled. Nayng had proposed what he himself was thinking. Now he could legitimately say it wasn't his idea. Before he could say anything, though, Thrahrn replied, "I'd be for it, but I'm not sure I trust your guy with our lives. One wrong move and the entirety of the Imperial military will come crashing down on our heads. Our lives won't be worth one credit."

Nayng smiled. "Trust me, he's good enough to pull it off."

Wes held up his hand, stilling what he knew would be a fruitless debate. "Actually, I think the Commander and Lieutenant's ideas are good. I will, however, also be following proper protocol and attempting to get the information released to us.

"Alright, as for assignments. Lieutenant, I want you and your men to stay here. You've been through enough for one day. If anything, try interrogating the cop again. You might learn something new. Either way, your guys need a rest.

"Commander Thrahrn, take Black Squadron and head back to the Nightstalker. I want you to monitor the Holonet and all non-military, non-governmental transmissions. Try and get a fix on any that seem suspicious, then send two Defenders to scope it out.

"Commander Selere, take your boys back to the prison. I want you to search everything those spies touched. Get holo records from security and figure out what species they are. Find the terminals they logged into and pull up whatever they did. I want to know exactly what they were doing there.

"Commander Nayng, have Lieutenant Nerkin begin hacking into Intelligence files. I want to know where that prisoner is going and why the kriff he got snatched up so fast.

"Everyone understand? Good. Dismissed."

As the other commanders trotted off, Wes turned to the communications console where Sub-lieutenant Yoles sat, waiting for orders. "Lieutenant," Wes said through clenched teeth, "get me Commodore Ruusan."

"Talk!" J-1 hurled Grewel across the room into the wall, where the frail figure shook and wimpered with pain.

"P-Please..." muttered the former agent, his sunken eyes and sallow cheeks staring out at J-1 hauntingly. "Please! I know nothing! I am nothing! I see nothing!"

"Talk!" barked J-1, giving Grewel a kick in the ribs. "Tell me what I want to know!"

"You haven't told him want we want yet," muttered J-4 in J-1's ears. His finely tuned Cerean senses flinched with every spike of pain and shriek of fear from the squirming prisoner.

"He knows," J-1 growled, as he dragged Grewel to his feet. J-1 looked into the former Imperial agent's eyes, that spun madly in all directions. "Tell me what you know! What got you arrested and stripped of your rank! Tell me what we're here for!"

J-1 threw Grewel to the floor again. The quivering Imperial agent turned upwards, looking up at the terrible figure silhouetted by the one dim lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. This was no interrogation chamber - it was a pit, and around the edges Xarrin's gang sat and watched with increasing chill.

"Please! No more! Inquisitor, I beg no more! I never once questioned our beloved Emperor-"

"He doesn't even know who's torturing him any more!" protested J-4, who felt a cold sweat break out on his prodigious brow.

"He will," muttered J-1, who once again lifted Grewel off the floor. This time, he brought the man level to his eyes so that they were bare centimeters apart.

"Look at me, Grewel - look at me!" J-1 grabbed the man's face, steadying it. The spinning eyes slowly stopped swirling until they locked with J-1's, a stead stream of sweat turning his face slick and shiney in the dim light. "What did you learn? Why did you break Compartmentalization?"

Grewel's breathing began to slow, and the outer semblence of sanity began to descend. "Found... alien. Thief - Liar! Stole from hospital... should have killed him... didn't kill him... did I kill him? No - no! He told me..." The eyes had stopped spinning, but began to look distant, as though he were fixating on a distant point of light.

"He told me... there was somewhere he had come from. A prison. Huge prison! For all of him - all of them. He'd escaped. Blamed the hospital. What did the hospital do to him? Don't know. Hate him. Hate him! Hate him!" Grewel's eyes filled with anger and he began to shake, trying to break loose from J-1 as though he meant to reach out and strangle the anonymous alien from time itself.

J-1 slapped Grewel hard, gripping his captive's head and turning it back to his eyes. "Focus, Grewel. What did the alien tell you?"

"Told me... told me I did it. No, not me - Intelligence. Said someone else did it. Didn't know what he was talking about - Compartmentalization! Mustn't know! Mustn't! Oh Inquisitor, I wouldn't have, shouldn't have! Had to know. Was it true? Where did he come from." Grewel paused briefly, breathing heavily until his semi-compsoure returned.

"Forgive me... went to learn. Found! Found out! Found huge secret! No one knows! No one supposed to know! I wasn't supposed to know! I wasn't! I did! Why, Inquisitor? Why did I learn? I'm so sorry!"

J-1 shook the sobbing agent, once again forcing him to look into his eyes. "What? What did you find out? What's the secret, Grewel!?"

"Noooo..." said Grewel, who turned white. "Noooo... Is a test! Can't tell you - can't tell anyone! Doesn't exist, can't be real, isn't real! I know now the error of my ways, Inquisitor. There are five fingers! Yes! I see them!"

The punch that came was so hard that even the gallery of rebels watching from above recoiled. Jian covered her mouth to staunch a shriek. Blood splattered J-1's hands as the man's nose turned to pulp. "Tell me!"

Grewel seemed hardly to notice. "Isn't true, isn't real..." The voice petered off.

"Boss..." whispered J-4. "He's not going to tell us that. Maybe try a different question?"

J-1's head dipped a little, but he maintained eye contact with Grewel. "Where did you learn this... this thing that doesn't exist, Grewel?"

"Headquarters," said Grewel flatly, as if the word was well-worn for him, easily plucked from the folds of madness. "I went where I should not. I am sorry Inquisitor, and I will never-"

"Where is headquarters?"

Grewel's eyebrows furrowed, clearly this question was unfamiliar to him. Was it a trick? Wouldn't they know? "...Where?"

"Where's your Imperial Intelligence headquarters on Coruscant, Grewel? Where can we find the secret?"

Grewel was gripped by panic, struggling feebly in J-1's iron grasp. "No! No! Where? Who? What? I am loyal, my master! I did nothing! I know nothing! Don't send me away! Please! You know me, you know I wouldn't betray the Emperor! No! Don't take me-"

"Where Grewel?" J-1 pulled back to punch him again, but the captive threw up his hands in terror.

"I will show you home, master! I know the way! Just do not send me away again! I promise! This time I will be loyal!"

J-1 loosened his grip, and Grewel fell to the ground in a sobbing heap. "Bring him a map of the Upper City, and have him mark down the position of his... 'headquarters', growled J-1 as he walked away, wiping the blood from his hands.

J-4 watched his team leader walk away, a moment of apprehension staying his hand. Before that moment was up, however, he began obeying the order, fetching the map for the weeping pile on the floor. The rebels slowly drifted away from the pit, leaving Grewel alone in the dim circle of light, begging for forgivness from masters far away.



J-2 continued scanning the skies above, peering through the eternal twilight of the undercity through the blazing red of his rifle scope. Their tower was an island sticking out of a sea of fog that stretched down to the ground below. All around, the urban canyon made by massive support structures cut off all light, giving them no means of knowing wether it was dawn or dusk.

"Nothing," muttered the Rodian, who lowered the rifle.

"Still on guard duty, I see?" said J-5 as he climbed up on to the roof from the maintenance shaft. "The rest of the team should be up soon."

J-2 nodded stoically, keeping his eyes fixed on some invisible point in the distance.

J-5 sighed, "I sure miss J-3."

"We will find him," replied J-2. "Secondary mission objective 3B - escape with team intact."

"There's a reason they call it a secondary objective," said J-5 tersely. "What if we don't save him? How are we going to save him?"

"We will," insisted J-2, "by completing the mission."

J-5 gave up in frustration and opened his laptop. "Well, some of us have to keep up with the cutting edge of technology to help, so excuse me for a few minutes."

They sat in silence until the distant sound of climbing reached them. J-6 emerged from the maintenance shaft, toting the team's gear. After him came J-4, and lastly J-1.

"Gentlemen," J-1 murmured in a hushed tone. "We have a location. Our primary objective is to break in undetected and steal... something." The situation called for something a little more professional sounding, so he tried again. "We've finally found a lead worth following - a state secret so important, so shameful, they mindfucked their own agent to keep it quiet. He told us where that secret is, so we are going to go there and tear that place apart until we find it. Any questions?"

The silence was unbroken as the group tried to avoid eye contact with their leader. Finally, J-2 spoke. "J-3?"

"If this location is an Imperial Intelligence headquarters, it's likely he's there. If we find him, we'll rescue him - I promise." Somehow, J-1 couldn't bring enough sincerity to his words to assuage his teammates. "We haven't got time for this, let's get going."

ISF Temporary Headquarters
Captain Wesley Vos's Quarters

"Captain Wesley Vos. I had heard that you were beginning your operations in this sector. What can I help you with?" Commodore Ruusan was a thin man - one could say frail, except for the hardness of his face and eyes. Like all Intelligence types, the very sight of him inspired fear. Wes actually had to mentally remind himself that the Commodore was no longer with Intelligence. Or so he'd heard.

"Commodore," began Wes, "one of my squadrons recently captured a prisoner, an Aqualesh, believed to have ties to a Galactic Coalition spy network. In the process of capturing this alien, it killed and wounded several of my men. Since the rest of its companions are still at large on Coruscant, and it is still my task to deal with them, the knowledge it holds is vital to my mission."

The image of the Commodore blinked, then scrunched it's brows. "That's interesting, but I'm not sure what it has to do with me."

"Well, Sir, here's the problem. My men have not been able to interrogate it."

"Captain, I would think that you would be self-sufficient enough to find a translator on your own without having to come to me to requesition supplies. But if you really need me to spoon-feed you..."

"No, Sir, translation is not the problem. The absence of our prisoner is."

"It escaped?"

"No, Sir. When we arrived back at our headquarters with the prisoner, I was contacted by Major Schell. He ordered me not to interrogate the prisoner, but to prepare him for transfer. Then two Intelligence Colonels arrived and whisked it away."

"Let me guess...you want to know where it was taken and what it knows. Well, Captain, I'm afraid I can't help you. As you know, I am not in Intelligence anymore. Even if I was, I wouldn't be able to give you that information without clear authorization."

"Sir, that alien has information vital to the success of my mission and the survival of my men. I must be allowed..."

"Captain, that is quite enough. You are dangerously close to the line. There is nothing that you must be allowed. If the information obtained from the interrogation of your prisoner is relevant, I'm sure it will be passed along to you."

"But Sir..."

"Captain, this conversation is over." The image clicked off.

Wes shut his eyes and began to breathe deeply, trying to control his anger. His next few calls would be just as important, though he doubted they would yield much more information. The one he was really concerned with would come after he'd worked his way up the command ladder - the call to Bhindi Drayson.

"All aboard," said Jian, as the Agents got on the train. They quickly fanned out in silence, each relegated to their thoughts and a private corner of the open-air carriage.

"This'll be a special run today, just for you guys," said Jian, although it didn't appear as though they were listening. "We're using an old route, one we haven't tried before to get to that base on time, so I can't promise it won't be a bumpy ride."

J-1 glanced at Jian and offered her a nod before returning to his thoughts. Jian sighed in frustration and moved to the front of the train to tell the conductor to get moving.

With a slow, grating sound the train began to move, leaving the derelict station behind and quickly gaining speed. The depths of the undercity flashed past with no rhyme or reason, alternating between endless depths of shadow and jagged walls of metal. J-team was demoralized, despondant. Silent.

Not entirely. A beeping from J-5's computer caught the team's attention and they turned to the diminuative agent with interest. J-5 raised an eyebrow and opened his computer. "Looks like someone's trying to trace me..."

"Really?" said J-1, who felt a growing concern. "What's the problem?"

J-5 smiled. "No, no problem at all. Whoever he is, he's young and cockey - and I've just refreshed my bag of tricks."

The bimm agent opened his 'bag of tricks' folder, and selected a program labled Spike. An especially cautious confirmation window popped up, which J-5 confidently confirmed. "Let's see how that works."

On his screen, the various hypernodes of the city appeared, as did the sattelite traces narrowing in on his position. With a few deft commands, these traces changed and the signal multipied - a pile of static had just been sent his opponant's way. In the meantime, he quickly altered his own signal data, placing the satellite's triangulation software several hundred miles off the scent, not to mention a couple miles too high. J-5 was no common hacker, but a military-class computer spy experienced in the ways of electronic warfare.

Ironically, for the rest of the team, nothing noteworthy happened. A few keystrokes later, J-5 closed his computer and replaced it in his side pouch. "Problem solved."

"What do you mean?" said J-1, still confused. "Are they after Xarrin or us?"

"Xarrin? Not at all," said J-5 with a smile. "I've probably set back the capture of that cranky gangster. Us? Well... it's not like it's long until we're noticed anyways, right?"

The brief smiles of his teammates faded, however, and oppressive silence once again reigned on the little train carriage. Nothing more was said during the trip to Grewel's former HQ.



If the Empire believed in anything, it was the power of symbols.

One of Coruscant's greatest branches of Imperial Intelligence - itself, one of the galaxy's finest spy agencies - rose up from the depths of Coruscant in a way unremarkable to any who didn't know the building's true purpose. To people like the agents, the massive building took on a sinister and threatening appearance. Every edge seemed hard and threatening, every mirrored window hiding mysteries and state secrets.

"Getting a message from Xarrin," said Jian, as the train pulled up to the crumbling station a few blocks away from the base of the Imperial building.

"What, this close?" said J-1. He got up from his sitting position and hurried over to the front of the train where Jian was pulling up a flatscreen. "He'd be detected for sure!"

"Maybe, if he was using anything close to galactic standard tech," said Jian with a smile. "We've got all the encryption forgotten technology can provide. Though I hear the collector we stole it from called it 'Analog'."

"Just so you know," the image of Xarrin said. "Grewel's story checks out so far. That building was used for government purposes back in the New Republic days, and everything I can find on the building is classified, deleted, or restricted. I'd say he's telling the truth, which means it's odds on this is the last time I'll see you alive." The old gangster grinned, and nodded at J-1. "Good luck Steve. It's been a fucking wild ride." The image went black.

J-1 sighed, and turned towards the rest of his team. "Move out. This operation begins now, including all rules of operation." The team nodded their agreement with this and set about securing the broken-down train station.

"Good luck!" said Jian, as the train creaked into life again and took them away, but J-team didn't even turn to aknowledge. Their greatest challenge lay before them. Focus needed to be maintained.

With J-2 on point, the team approached the imposing skyscraper from below, following the derelict tunnel system to where it passed closest to the building. The Empire wasn't lazy, however, and had judiciously sealed off and cleared away anything in contact with the edge of their sensitive command centers, meaning there was no easy approach. Every aspect of security had been considered, and that meant no easy-to-slip-through air vents, unguarded backdoors, or easily accessible closets through which to penetrate the building.

Which is why they weren't going to bother. Instead, the team camped out in an alleyway across from a major entrance. Fortunately it received little traffic due to the high-security nature of the building, but cameras and personnel were evident.

J-2 stood at the edge of the concealing darkness of the alleyway, examining the entrance of the building with the scope of his rifle. In barely audible whispers, he conveyed to his squad "Four cameras, two security, one receptionist. Locks. Blast doors."

J-1 considered the tactical situation for a minute. "Approach vector?"

"Clean. Low-traffic zone. We can go from alley to door without being spotted."

"No space for a frontal assault," murmured J-1. That lobby's probably more for show than anything - we haven't got the credentials they'd be looking for, none of that stealing a janitor's uniform shit. The outside building is impervious to penetration, and since these guys have probably seen a few holovids in their day I'm guessing they've thought of stuff like bugging the sewers and putting security cameras on the outer walls."

"So what's the plan?" said J-4, sizing up the building. "I mean, if we can't break in, sneak in, or blast our way in, what does that leave us?"

"When you put it that way, nothing," said J-1, who turned away from the building and back to the group. "Which is why our only choice is to try everything at once."

His team's interest piqued, J-1 began laying out his plan in full.



The darkness lifted at last from his eyes, turning into blinding light.

As J-3's vision slowly returned to him, he felt a hard slap across his face. His mandibles clicked in irritation, but he couldn't reach up to protect himself - he was tied to a chair.

"You're a very special case," the shady humanoid figure began to say. "A foregin spy? A terrorist? Maybe a criminal specialist of some kind?" Another hard slap to the face - it actually served to focus J-3's vision, allowing him to see the greying man in a nonedescript uniform. A half-decayed memory suggested to him that this man was wearing an Imperial Intelligence uniform, but the immediate focus was on the pain in his face.

"Whatever you are, you're so very special because unlike the usual scum of the undercity, you've shown incredible skill and ability. Talents that don't come cheap, and I'm curious to know specifically who you work for." The disgust for a lower being was palpable in his speech, stinging J-3's ego as well as his body, which began to register countless aches and bruises. "Maybe the Coalition?"

J-3 said nothing, clicking his mandibles slowly as his full range of senses came online. "Your policeman friend has already betrayed you and your people, agent," said the man. "You have been abandoned and trapped. You could at least share your feelings on the matter - curse your comrades for their failure? Bemoan your fate? It's customary of prisoners to start that way."

He was in a square room, small and dark, but not dank - indeed, it had a well-kept, corporate feel to it. The blinding light in his eyes made it hard to see, but the Intelligence man who circled slowly could still be made out by his outline. Tentatively, J-3 tested the chains that held him to the metal chair, and was assured their strength. He wouldn't be simply tearing his way out.

"Ah yes, your species cannot actually speak Basic without assistance," the man said, each word dripping with mockery. "Don't worry, I have a protocol droid on hand who can translate your clicks and grunts for me."

J-3 spoke. "He requests a private interpretation box," the protocol droid relayed.

The Intelligence man frowned. "Oh all right, if that'll make you more... comfortable, I'll have one brought down." He left the cone of blinding light and whispered something into a wall intercomm. After a minute of silence, the door opened - outside, J-3 glimpsed crisp, criss-crossing hallways filled with desks and computers, indistinguishable from a regular office. The door closed, and the Intelligence man crossed the floor back into the cone to affix the device around his neck.

"There, now maybe you'll-"

J-3 lunged forwards with his snapping mandbiles and wild, alien eyes, foaming at the mouth and letting out a loud and gratting growl. The Intellignece man cursed and dropped the translator, striking the side of J-3's face with a burning stun-stick. The shock dazed J-3 and he reeled backwards. The Intelligence man continued to strike him, spitting curses as the side of his face bled.

"Fine then! If that's how you want to do this, we can be very accomodating." The door opened again, and the Intelligence man and the droid could be heard leaving. "Don't get too comfortable, I'll be back soon with a new approach that might change your attitude, alien."

J-3 was left in silence and darkness again as the light went out. He winced from the pains still running up and down his face, but internally a small smile bloomed. He had shown no fear to the enemy.

More importantly, he felt in his chained hands the broken voicebox the Intelligence man had dropped. With the care of a practiced lock-picker, he cracked open the sensitive device and started pulling metal wires from inside. Let's see how well built the locks are in the Empire...



The sewers. Easily the worst place to be - in a galaxy where countless sentient races had evolved, city waste had become an interesting medley of disgusting and dangerous chemicals and substances better off left to the imagination (or if possible, not at all).

Nevertheless, there were some of hardened constitutions who could sustain themselves in this environment. The truly consumate professional or the all-believing fanatic who wouldn't let something as simple as biological waste to obstruct their goals.

It's for reasons like this that J-2 and J-6 were able to emerge from the channel of waste running under the building at all. The pair quickly ducked back into the sludge as a recon droid passed overhead, only to reemerge when the coast was clear.

"Advance," whispered J-2, who slinked out over the ledge.

Squatting at one end of the tunnel, J-2 was forced to admit the Empire knew how to prepare. Every manner of laser grid, camera, patrol droid, and more guarded the lowest portion of the building, centered around a single central waste pipe that connected the building to the city network, and one maintenance ladder so secure that it would have taken a platoon of soldiers to take it by force. It was a critical weakness of any building, as such waste couldn't be shipped out any other way - a vehicle entering and exiting regularly to cart waste way would be an even bigger risk. The lengths some races would go to use the toilet was staggering.

J-2 shouldered his collapsible rifle and mounted the Ion attatchment at the end. He took careful aim at the cameras on the far side, and in a moment the thing was fried ever so silently and quickly, the victim of a regular 'glitch'. With that out of the way, the only remaining risks were laser alarms (or worse, laster lasers) and automated defences. The grid would come first, so that the defences could kill anyone trying to sneak through them.

J-2 signalled for J-6 to follow, and the hulking Azguardian emerged from the waste. It was fortunate that Azguardians possessed two minds, for subconsciously J-6 was wise enough to shunt control of his sense of smell to the second one for now. The two advanced cautiously until they reached the laser grid.

At least, until J-2 spotted it on his rifle-scope scanner. "It's extensive," he muttered. "Also, two automated turrets on the far side. I estimate if we try to cross, they will open fire when we are still half way through."

"There's enough methane and other chemicals to turn this place into a bonfire if they start firing," murmured J-6. "It would be most practicle to eliminate them from afar."

"Negative. Weapons fire triggers laser grid."

J-6 sighed in frustration. "Then how can we hope to bypass it?"

J-2 considered how to best present his unorthodox solution. "There is a way. Turrets are not motion-sensing, or else the waste would trigger them. Most likely heat or organic-targetting. If we were submerged in waste... they might not activate."

J-6 blinked. "Your plan is to cover ourselves in excrement, dance through a narrow grid of lasers, and hope the turrets mistake us for sewage?"

There was a slightly awkward pause between the two agents. "Yes," murmured J-2."

"And what about this cable?" said J-6, pulling up the cable he'd been dragging behind him ever since they entered the sewer. "How does it get through the laser grid?"

J-2 shrugged. "Leave it? It is secondary."

J-6 sighed. and shook his head. "It's worth trying."

J-2, with all the agility of his naturally supple species, slithered and slunk between pipes and supports, around otherwise invisible lasers, dripping a constant trail of muck and slime. Arriving at the far end, he slipped unnoticed before the turrets themselves, and gently deactivated both of them. Breathing a sigh of relief, he signalled for J-6 to follow.

Being much too big to follow the same route, J-6 instead reached up to the ceiling and rammed his claws through. With them firmly in place, he climbed along the ceiling like a spider (albeit a massive one covered in excrement). As he went, he pulled a roll of all-purpose demo-tape from his demolitions satchel and taped the cable he'd been pulling to the ceiling as he went. Finally, the straing of hanging from the ceiling started to drag him down. Luckily by then he had passed the lasers and landed neatly next to J-2. "Let's go."

"Affirmative," said a slightly impressed J-2, who began climbing the ladder. Before he followed his companion up, J-6 stopped to plug the extremely long extension he'd just dragged after him into a clutch of cables running under the building. With that finished, the Azguardian and Rodian spy began making their way into the Imperial base from below.

“All right,” said J-5, grinning. “I’m hooked up. Let me see if I can - woah.” the diminutive spy stared at his computer screen.

“What?” said J-1 glancing over from the cover of the shadows. “What’s the problem?”

“Nothing,” said J-5 unconvincingly. “It’s just... wow, these are some thick defences. The passwords are locked up tight, there’s no manual overrides in the system, it’s closed off from any outside hookups... almost a crippling level of compartmentalization. You’d actually have to be in different parts of the building to access different basic systems.”

J-1 seemed impatient with his technical expert’s analysis. “Well, what can you get me then?”

“I’ve got access to main hall security cameras and lockdown controls. That should get you past the lobby. Then what?”

J-1 just shrugged. “I’ll improvise.”

The reply caught J-5 off-guard as far too casual for the consumate professional spy, but he decided to avoid asking questions and focus on the task at hand. “Once you get within sight range of security I’ll loop the cameras so no one’ll know you’re in the building. Whenever you’re ready.”

J-1 nodded, and approached the front doors.

If there was one advantage the agents had in their approach, it was that the Empire was just as interested as they were in keeping the going-ons of their intelligence strongholds secret from the public. The lobby was protected from the outside world by sound-proofing and mirrored windows. Once he entered the front doors, he wouldn’t have to be worried about the outside world.

Of course, the downside was that this was because there were more than enough security, spies, and deadly traps to kill him already in the building. Best not to think about it.

He nonchalantly approached the front desk with J-4 in tow. Though J-4 was bound as if a prisoner, J-1 was in his regular spy regalia. The plan would be laughably simple and ineffective if he planned to rely on it alone to gain entrance to one of the Empire’s most secure places.

The lobby was a wondrous thing of steel. There were no decorative pillars or artwork or even fanciful design, merely an Imperial crest mounted on the wall and a heavily-fortified front-desk beyond which sealed doors lead to the heart of the complex. Four security guards and two automated turrets, along with a foot of blast-door, prevented entry.

The front-desk secretary seemed skeptical of J-1 as he approached, and there was a definite waking of the guards. Suspiscion was in the air. The secretary asked “What is your name, password, and business?”

For one inexplicable second, J-1 had the overpowering urge to say ‘Prisoner transfer from cellblock 1138', but had the feeling that the secretary hadn’t been notified, and in clearing it would have forced a shootout.

Instead, J-1 decided to cut out the middleman and drew his pistol first. For half a second reaction-time slowed.

The guards hefted automatic weapons of the most menacing variety, and in the coverless environment of the lobby would have turned J-1 to mincemeat in seconds. Thankfully, J-1 had put his faith in J-5's promise of electrical dominance, and before mere human meat could pull the triggers of their automated weapons the automated turrets turned on them and opened fire, dropping all four guards screaming to the ground.

The front desk secretary was now looking down the barrel of J-1's pistol. At some point, he probably soiled himself, because J-1 gave him three seconds of silence to contemplate the meaning of it.

“Let us in,” he hissed.

The secretary nodded frantically and started to reach for a control on the front desk.

“No, not that one,” said J-4, unbinding his wrists. “That’s the alarm. You’re looking for the manual door release near your left side.”

J-4's minor empathic abilities never ceased to prove their effectiveness. The secretary breathlessly wheezed “Oh, right,” and pulled the correct lever. Then he passed out. J-1 holstered his pistol.

“We’ve probably got a few minutes before they realize the building’s infiltrated,” said J-1, as he pulled the blast door open. “Assuming J-2 and J-6 do their job we should have just enough time, and an escape route waiting for us.”

J-4 frowned, catching up to J-1 as they moved past the security measures and into the mini-lobby beyond. “This whole plan seems off, sir. It feels desperate and reckless.”

“On this planet that’s what you have to be to get ahead,” said J-1, scanning through a lobby directory. All the room names and floor levels were in code - and thus useless. “Looks like we do this the hard way. Come on.”

Hurrying down the hall towards the elevators, J-1 drew his pistol again and affixed the silencer. No one was getting in his way this close to finishing the mission.

He flicked the setting from stun to kill. No one.



The intelligence interrogator had returned with two thugs in tow. They were men of no great skill beyond the physical, but every large institution of note tends to pick up a few such workers sooner or later. They also happened to have clubs, but that was just to save their knuckles for a special occasion.

His prisoner, however, was nowhere to be found. Chains and all, his cone of light was now empty. The intelligence man stared in disbelief for a few moments before swearing the air blue and stomping his foot. His thugs pulled the door shut behind them - office politics had a deadly edge in Imperial Intelligence, and such a sign of failure would best be hidden until blame could be transfered.

“He can’t have escaped! There aren’t any air vents or any of that stupid holo-movie shit in here!” exclaimed the man as he moved towards the small lit chair. “He can’t have just disappeared into thin-”

J-3 hadn’t. Swinging down from where he hung off the ceiling lamp, he wrapped the chains around the interrogator’s neck and yanked him into the darkness, knocking the lamp clean of its’ fixure and shattering it on the ground in the process. Over a frantic minute of confusion the two men stumbled around the darkness in their business suits waving clubs around trying to find and pummel J-3. The irony that they were using their own boss as a pinata would have been greater if they could have seen it.

In the confusion, J-3 slipped out the door.

Out of the frying pan...

He ducked low. It was a freaking office! Cubicles filled the floor in all directions, filled with the detritus of a work enivronment right out of a newspaper comic. The only differences were harder to spot for a none-spy - progress reports included names of the recently deceased and business casual looked a lot more like a quasi-military uniform - but they did little to ease J-3's confusion.

He stayed low, hoping to avoid detection, and leapt into an abandoned cubicle. Out of ideas for the present, he climbed into a recycling bin and waited for something to present itself.



J-2 and J-3 looked like shit. Literally.

Climbing out of the sewer system and into the stronghold’s storage basement, they could well have been mistaken for two slime monsters roaring out of the depths. They were gross, is my point, but fortunately neither minded so much. There was far too much to do.

The basement was a large warehouse, stacked high with various illicit, secretive, or important materials that ranged from drugs to weapons to confiscated personal information to a few minor state secrets kicking around. What they were looking for wouldn’t be here, though - nothing stacked next to a half-empty box of glitterstem was worth sending a man to a gulag for.

It was a step in the right direction though, although before they’d taken two steps J-2 realized a problem.

“We can’t sneak like this,” he stated. “We smell. They will detect us. Also, we are leaving a trail of shit everywhere we go.”

J-6 looked down at his feet where, indeed, a pool of liquid sewage was growing. He cursed under his breath and suppressed his Azguardian heritage of personal pride. Not exactly the glory he’d signed up for. “That’ll make things more difficult, but I don’t believe J-1 wants us to find the secret anyways. We can still provide him support.”

J-2 said nothing, merely scanning the room. “No security threats on the inside. Only problem is getting out.”

J-6 grinned, and pulled a canister from his belt pouch. It was smeared with sewage, but J-6 wiped away just enough for the words ‘Danger, highly explosive’ to be visible. “Problem?”

"Move, move, move!"

The ubiquitous order has been given by soldiers throughout time and space, often in all manner of dangerous situations and with no regard for rank or effectivness. In this instance, it was on the lips of a stomtrooper sergeant - leader of the security detail to the Imperial Intelligence branch under attack as he drove his soldiers towards the sound of fighting emerging from the basement storage chamber.

The squad set up positions on either side of the corridor facing a large blast door, behind which the high-level confiscated materials of Imperial Intelligence were stored. On the other side, shouts and blaster fire could be heard, but the sergeant and his men sat tight.

Finally, the shouting stopped. There was a long, agonizing pause, during which all that could be heard was a faint tapping and tinkering at the blast door. Quite suddenly, a cry leapt up from the other side of the blast door, as if someone was running for cover very quickly.

The door blew out with an ear-splitting bang, and smashing into the sergeant and his men. Following through the smoke were J-2 and J-5 who charged into the hall blasting stomtroopers with deadly accuracy.

The sergeant tried to wriggle out from under the door, but J-6 leapt on it, crushing the man between the heavy blast metal and the floor. His scream of pain drew J-6's attention, who hammered his heavy boot down on the sergeant's head.

The sergeant's last thought was the horrific, shitty smell coming off the Azguard as he stomped his face in.

"Hurry!" barked J-6, as he grabbed a fresh blaster off a downed trooper. "We need to get the to elevator!"

J-2 said nothing, finding the Azguard's bravado starting to grate on him. The cliche of shouting one's objective aloud as if they'd forgotten it over the last few minutes had never appealed to the serious-minded Rodian.



J-1 and J-4 bound up the stairs two at a time. Halfway up their current flight, they ran into a man carrying an armful of security documents in the uniform of an Imperial Intelligence agent - although from his weight and receding hairline, probably not a fiend agent.

J-1 knocked the papers out of the shocked agent's hands and grabbed him by the throat. His eyes burned like coals and his voice was a harsh rasp when he demanded "Where do you keep your records!"

"Wh-who are you?!" exclaimed the Imperial, dangling in the air. "What do you want?!"

"Your records, damn it!" said J-1, slamming the man into the wall and pointing his pistol in his face. "Where do you keep them?"

"Calm down," hissed J-4. "Someone'll hear us!"

"Tell me where you keep your records or I swear to god I'll - fuck!"

The man had soiled himself and passed out. J-1 threw him to the ground and punched the wall with his fist.

It was J-4's turn to get serious. He grabbed J-1 by the collar and rammed him up against the wall, getting eye to eye with his commander. "What the hell are you doing?" he hissed. "You're a goddamn mess! This operation's already burning up in front of us and you're losing it! What's going on?"

"I can't take this planet any more," said J-1, scanning around. "I'm sick of this shit. We're following the weakest lead in the galaxy, we've got Imperials dogging our footsteps. We're down a member already and we've got no clue where to go next - that's what's going on, J-4!"

"Pull it together already!" snapped J-4. "We haven't got time for this anymore!"

"The whole team knows it's a bust, J-4! Since the start, you've all been drifting away while I've been trying to drag us out of this thing alive! How many times have we almost been caught or killed? Every last one of you doesn't think we can do this any more, so why are you so suprised that I don't think we can anymore too?!"

J-1 panted desperately, gulping down air until he calmed down. J-1 tilted his eyes to the ground and sighed. The silence remained for a few moments, the only sound coming from all around as the residents of the tower slowly awoke to the realization that the enemy was amongst them.

"None of this matters right now," said J-4. "One way or another we still have to finish the mission. Come on, let's keep looking."

J-1 let out a huge sigh. "No, J-4, I don't think we'll have to keep looking."

J-4 looked at his team leader quizzically. J-1 smiled and pulled up a map of the building from the pile of documents at the passed-out agent's feet. "Eigth floor. Sealed files department. Maximum security."

J-4 smiled back. "Lead the way, sir."



J-3 slipped from one cubicle to the next when the way was clear, ducking under the abandoned computer desk. He waited until the way was clear again before making his next move.

It was impossible. Any moment now someone was going to spot him and he'd be blasted by a dozen angry Imperial agents. He gripped the chains in his hands tightly, prepared to go down fighting if it came to it.

Suddenly, a voice could be heard over the intercom. "Forget the escaped prisoner! There's a break in in the basement, they're heading for the elevator! Lock down this floor immediately!"

In the panic that followed, J-3 made a rush for the stairs before the blast doors came down over the door. He heard a yell as some pencil-pusher agent spotted him and drew his pistol. J-3 reached the door just as the blast door slammed down, turning to see a half-dozen different men begin drawing blasters from their coats. This is it.

As if by divine intervention, the blast door behind him shot up, and he fell backwards into the stairwell beyond. Before a blaster bolt could be fired, the door slammed back down, preserving J-3 from harm.



"You're welcome," said J-5, grinning at his live feed to the building's security cameras.



"Level 8," said J-1 as he approached the door. The level hadn't been sealed off yet - J-5 had clearly been messing with the alarm system. "Get ready..."

There was still a standard blast door and keycard access. J-1 suspected even more security measures were required to open the door, the Empire was clever like that, but they didn't have time to play around. J-4 blasted off a wall panel and hotwired the door controls - though for a heart-stopping moment a second blast door closed over instead, eventually he worked it out. The door opened, and the alarm sounded.

Badly under-equipped, definetly outclassed, and potentially no longer posessing the element of surprise, J-1 kicked in the door and rolled for cover.

The floor was effectively one big room. In the center, another room was marked off by thick black metal walls, and all around security measures criss-crossed the space between the stairs and elevator and the central chamber. The Empire took compartmentalization extremely seriously, especially in the rare few places where that information pooled.

J-4 rolled in after J-1 and the two took cover behind... there was nothing to take cover behind. Immediately, an autoturret kicked into being and began firing. The two agents began swearing and running for their life as automated death racked the ground in their wake.

The ground before them could be electrified, or filled with spiked pits, or any number of death traps. Neither dared cross it, leaving them very limited room to move around. Thankfully, while J-4's terrified flailing distracted the weapon J-1 managed to plug it from a distance.

"What now?" gasped J-4, as the sound of armoured boots approaching got louder.

J-1 looked at the twenty feet between them and the blast door. On the other side was a database of Imperial Intelligence records, including C. Grewal and his mysterious dismissal. It could be the key to blowing open their entire mission. Their ticket home.

"Hold them off," said J-1. "I'll get there."

J-1 didn't believe in the Force - that is to say, he didn't believe it'd ever do him any good. That meant he had no one to pray to as he took his first few steps towards the door. Nothing yet.

J-4 was firing down the stairs, fending off a wave of angry Imperial agents and storm troopers. "I can't hold them long!" he shouted back.

J-1 ran the remaining distance towards the door, praying to any greater power that would listen anyways, just for the hell of it. The laser tripwire he passed obviously lacked any form of mass, yet somehow the moment he tripped it he knew what it was.

The blast doors suddenly shot back up, locking them in. The end.

J-4 gasped in relief. "That'll slow down the troopers."

Quite suddenly, the temperature began to rise. J-1 felt his feet began to cook under him. "Oh, no goddamn way," he muttered.

"They're going to incinerate us?" exclaimed J-4. "Since when does the Empire get their traps from bad Holovids?"

J-1 cursed and reached the far wall. The blast door was tightly sealed - no doubt waiting for them to die a burning death. J-1 yanked his one piece of high-explosive - quite probably the last piece they had in their entire inventory - and slapped it on the blast door. "Get back!"

There wasn't any cover anyways, and it was already hot. Thankfully the blast failed to incinerate them as the blast doors shuddered and fell forwards.

They didn't have long now. Their shoes were beginning to burn. Quite suddenly, the elevator doors burst outwards, revealing J-2 and J-6. "Let's get out of here!" shouted J-6, gesturing for J-1 and J-4 to follow, before realizing how hot it was. "Where do they get their deathtraps? A bad -"

"I already made that joke, said J-4, jumping into the elevator. "Come on, J-1!"

J-1 ignored them. They'd come too close. He wasn't about to turn back now.

He turned towards the central database, suddenly revealed. Rushing across a red hot floor that ate through his shoes, he dived into the air-conditioned database and rammed J-5's wireless connector into an open port.

There. J-1 slipped to the ground, feeling the heat washing over him and into the tiny room packed with sensitive computer equipment. J-5 would download the information they need before the heat burned it away. The shouts of his comrades seemed distant now. He could die.

No, not yet. As the dry heat of the incinerator outside started to turn into a burn, he felt an overwhelming desire to live. Pain unlike anything he'd experienced in the line of duty washed over his skin. His soldier's zeal which had burned out at last was suddenly filled with thoughts of Gale and the empty thing that was his personal life. That was him.

"Not yet..." he struggled to his feet, driven to action by the pain. He didn't even feel it as he dashed across white hot metal and dived back into the elevator, itself starting to overheat. The doors slammed shut and they slipped away into the bowels of the building. J-1 had no idea what sort of shape he was in. He couldn't hear anything, his eyesight was shot from the burning heat, so he could only guess to the damage. It didn't matter - he could still feel his men grab on to him in the safety of the elevator. His duty was done for now.



The best of the best.

The Coalition was retreating back to the sewers from whence they crawled out. The captain wasn't certain, but who else could it be? The Coalition was just the sort of scum to try something this bold and blatent. A dozen commandos stood ready to riddle them with shot the moment the elevator arrived.

He almost pitied them, to have come so far only to meet failure. "On my order, men."

It was then that the captain heard clacking behind him. A terrible, organic sounding hiss escaped from alien lips. He tried to turn, but a chain wrapped around his neck pull him up towards the ceiling.

By the time the elevator arrived, the way was clear.



Download complete. Connection terminated.

The little Bimm let out a sigh of relief. It'd been a battle, overcoming the security checks on the database, especially as it'd entered lockdown mode and begun deleting itself. Luckily, the designer had assumed that anyone to get that far was supposed to be there anyways, and had gotten a little sloppy.

He finished his coffee and put the mug down on the table, smiling grandly at the information he'd purloined. The team probably wouldn't appreciate his accomplishments, though. Just because there weren't any explosions or lasers doesn't make it just as important! They probably just stumbled around and shot at stormtroopers, anyways.

"Check, please," said J-5 to the passing waitress. As she went to tally his bill, he switched off his computer and closed it, placing it carefully in his backpack and melting the end of his hardline with the candle at the coffeeshop table.

The waitress - in fact, Jian - returned with the bill and a smile. "Anything else, sir?"

"No, thanks. Tell your boss my friends and I had a great time. We'll probably stop by again some day, but for now I think it's time to go home."

"See you later then, cutie!" said Jian with a wide smile. She even gave him a mint from the coffeeshop's candy jar.

J-5 crunched the mint and stepped out into the street, looking at the huge nonedescript tower in front of him. It leaked smoke from one of the upper windows, and a crowd had begun to gather near the doors where blast-marks had been noticed. J-5 walked casually down a side alley, dropped down an open sewer manhole, and was gone.

The call to Bhindi Drayson had not gone well. Twice Wes had bordered on insubordination, not a good idea when talking to someone who was arguably the deadliest woman in the galaxy. But some good had come of it.

First, he had learned that the Aqualesh was being held on Coruscant. So he had been able to focus Red 4's searches in that direction. Second, he had discovered that there was some sort of secret intelligence base nearby - in his sector, actually - that was most likely the Coalition's next target. Finally, he had received a new set of orders that sent him to that base.

In his mind, he reviewed the instructions. So, I'm supposed to take most of my men, if not all of them, to guard this warehouse, but I'm not allowed to enter it? How the kriff does she expect me to do that? And why?

That was when the call had come in from Selere. They were after Grewal, incarcerated by Commodore Ruusan. Wes's jaw hardened. How the kriff was he supposed to do his kriffing job if these kriffing idiots kept keeping him from it? He'd ordered Ruusan back to the base, then recalled the rest of the units. Green Squadron hopped in their Defenders and continued running patterns over the area where the hacker had been, but nothing had been detected yet. Wes held out little hope that anything would be.

He gathered the entire ISF in the briefing room. "Alright, here's the situation. We've been ordered to guard this building," Wes hit a switch, and a hologram flashed to life, "but we're not allowed to enter. So we're going to get creative.

"Black Squadron, you'll be covering the perimeter. I want to know about any disturbances to the walls. We can't have them blowing their way out like last time. Green Squadron will have four Defenders over the building to shoot down any speeders they may have. Red Squadron, you will be covering the exits from the first floor up. If they try to come out, gun them down. There's only six of them, so it shouldn't be too difficult. Gray Squadron, you'll take the sewers. There's only one exit, and it's well guarded, but if these guys are as good as I think, they'll find a way past the automated defenses. So it's up to you to stop them there. Racen, I want you personally manning an E-web set up to fire either direction. I want anyone that pops his head out on either side of you dead.

"Everybody good? Alright then, let's move."

"What's the situation, J-5?" J-6 asked as they lingered around the tunnel to the sewers below. "Is our way clear?"

"Negative, J-6," muttered J-5. The Bimm had backtracked throug the sewers to meet up with his team, but had instead spotted the Imperials lying in wait. "They've got a whole team and heavy weapons set up ready for when you drop down."

"Can you clear our path?"

"Negative." J-5 murmured a curse as he watched the Imperials haul E-webbers into position. "There are still two guards watching the approach, and I haven't got the firepower to handle them. What're you going to do?"

"I'm out of explosives," J-5 muttered to those assembled. "J-1's out, and J-5 says he can't help us. Now what?"

J-4 held his nose and grimaced. "Whatever we're going to do, let's do it fast. This place smells like shit."

"It is shit," J-2 explained matter-of-factly.

Suddenly, J-3 threw up his hands and exclaimed something in excitement in his native tongue. Unfortunately, without a translation aide, no one knew what he meant. He grabbed a loose wooden plank from one of the storage boxes in the warehouse and wrapped the end of it with a strip of sodden fabric he tore off of J-6's uniform.

"Hey!" grumbled J-6. "What do you think you're doing with that?"

J-4, however, caught on to the idea. "Give him your fuse lighter, J-6."

Still uncertain, J-6 pulled a well-worn steel lighter from his belt and passed it to J-2, who lit the makeshift torch and hurled it down the tube towards the sewage below.

Quite suddenly, J-6 realized what his Aqualesh friend was up to. "J-5! Get out of the sewers, now! Fire in the hole!" He slammed the metal lid to the sewer chute shut and held it down.

With a rat's instinct to scurry away from danger, J-5 scampered down the sewer as behind a terrible fwoosh sounded, the sound of methane igniting like a tiny bomb. Immediately afterwards, laser-fire began to kick down the tunnel as well - the fires setting off the now-haywire defence systems. Screams and curses as the Imperials scattered and fell back echoed around the room.

J-6 tore open the sewer tunnel again. J-2 leapt in, pulling up his collapsible rifle as he did so and disabling the auto-turrets with quick bursts on his way to the ground. The enemy already knew they were here, what was an alarm or two?

In his wake the rest of the team followed, J-6 carrying the unconscious J-1. They made a break through the still-flaming sewer tunnels, clinging to the narrow walkways on either side to avoid the river of fire that was the sewage. Imperials groand and lay about, stunned by the concussive force of the combustion, but the Coalition agents had no time to dispatch them.

At the far end of the tunnel, J-5 dropped into view - his hair matted down with slime and his face blackened with soot. "Remind me to kill you if we get out of this alive," the diminuitive hacker tersely declared. "Where now?"

"Time to go," said J-2, pointing further down the tunnel. "That way. We lose them, then get ship home."

"Sounds like a plan!" said J-6, charging ahead. The team ran as fast as they could until a voice behind them yelled "Stop!"

They did so. They turned.

A man, probably the Imperial's captain, stumbled forwards and waved his sidearm at them. He was burned and his helmet was cracked, but he was still dangerous. "Stop! You're all... under... arrest, or something. Drop your weapons!"

No one moved. "I said drop them!" he shouted, taking careful aim with the pistol.

J-3, glancing next to him at J-2, moved as if to put down his rifle. At the last moment, he grabbed a knife from J-3's boot-holster and whipped it at the Imperial's hand. He screamed and fired into the air as the knife cut through his glove. In the ensuring panic, the team ran off into the sewers, towards where the lighting end.

J-2, not usually one for dramatics, stopped at the edge of the all-consuming darkness and turned towards the Imperials as the rest of his team ran on and vanished.

"Now you see us," he whispered, his voice becoming large in the echoing chamber. "Now you don't."

He took a step backwards into the shadows, and was gone from that place forever.

"A bit melodramatic, don't you think?" said J-4 as they ran.

"Well, the commander's unconscious," remarked J-6. "Good to see him taking up the slack."