Shirmaya System, fourteen days after the Battle of Mandalore, private charter shuttle on route to Deragus II
Grim faced and determined were terms that could have described the sixty plus Mandalorians lining either side of the pleasure yacht they'd commandeered for this mission. There was a score to be settled and blood to be spilled between the Mandalorian warriors and the Yuuzhan Vong who'd attacked their home world two weeks previously. Dyir Carud was the man in charge of the Mandalorian strike team posing as tourists heading for a pleasure resort. It wasn't widely known that Deragus II had fallen to the Yuuzhan Vong, so it wouldn't seem odd to the aliens that a private charter would be making it's way towards them.
He'd been given his orders by Boba Fett himself: lure in a Yuuzhan Vong boarding party, kill the boarders and commandeer their vessel for use later on when the Galactic Alliance sent in it's liberation task force for the main assault. It was a task easier said than done, not many people knew how to fly Yuuzhan Vong spacecraft, but Yunauli Drau had spent the last five days learning how to fly captured Yuuzhan Vong coralskippers, assuming that their boarding craft were flown the same way. If they weren't they'd have to improvise, which meant using a tow cable to get it to the fourth moon of Dexus.
The moon was where the recent intelligence said the Yuuzhan Vong war-coordinator, the massive Yammosk, was being held deep within the planet's mantle. Carud and his Mandalorian Supercommando strike team had also been given the task of eliminating the creature and dealing a major blow to the Yuuzhan Vong orbiting Deragus II and it's seven moons. Figuring out how they'd be getting to the Yammosk in the mantle had been the only hard part of the mission to plan, until Tyran Numeck suggested using the long abandoned gemstone mines, using them would be easier than searching for the Yuuzhan Vong tunnels which would surely be guarded.
Tyran Numeck was the second in command for the squad of ori'ramikade. Carud was seated across from Numeck, his armor was a royal blue color that sat on top of a black beskar impregnated flightsuit, while Tyran's armor was jet black with a gold trim on top of a jet black flightsuit. Tyran was about six feet tall with close shaven black hair and a goatee. Being no more than twenty-seven, he was already a battle hardened warrior who'd made a name as an assassin in the Outer Rim, just as his father had a decade earlier, before the Yuuzhan Vong attack on Mandalore. Carud was the son of a champion bolo-ball player, was a few inches taller than Tyran and had blonde hair and two days of beard growth on his face
Numeck had a personal stake in this mission, he'd lost a lot more than family when the Yuuzhan Vong attack Mandalore. His father had died, and when Ruima Numeck died a piece of Tyran went with him. Carud had known Tyran since childhood and the man that sat before him wasn't the old Tyran Numeck. It was a savage beast with a thirst for blood that wouldn't be quenched until every Yuuzhan Vong warrior would be exterminated, there wasn't a fun-loving, easy going, sarcastic man anymore, just that thirst and hunger for payback.
It hurt him to see a friend being tortured like that and being able to do nothing to relieve any of the pain, and Carud wasn't the only one on the shuttle who felt that way. Kial Volar, Baydo Titus, and Beluin Ululat all felt the same. Volar would never admit it, for years the two men had had openly feuded hiding a deep trust and respect the two shared for one another, Volar had a scar than ran the right side of his face inflicted by the butt of Tyran's blaster rifle. Beluin was a Zabrak who had grown up following Tyran's orders, and would have walked through the lava beds of Mustafar if Tyran ordered him, but now his fearless leader was headed down a path of annihilation that he couldn't follow. Baydo Titus was the unit medic and could treat any wound inflicted by any weapon, he felt helpless because he couldn't heal the wounded soul of his good friend.
It felt weird inside the passenger bay of the shuttle. There wasn't the usually pre-battle banter to displace the jitters, there was no laughter, not even the sound of armor plate hitting armor plate. There was just an unnatural silence that was almost void like.
A beep in his helmet made Carud refocus on the HUD instead of his tormented comrade. There was a message waiting for him on a private link from Miles Violat, the demolitions expert for the strike team.
Carud opened the link "What?"
"Say something to the team, you need to boost morale levels or a lot of us aren't going to be coming home to Keldabe when this is over." Miles said.
"What am I supposed to say Mi'ika? They've all got a determination to bring about the end of the Yuuzhan Vong, They don't need motivation." Carud said.
"Would it hurt?" Miles persisted "A lot of these guys are focused on Numeck's state of mind and if he'll do something foolish and get a good portion of us killed."
"Been asking around have you?"
"Bralor and Haig both agree with me, we need a boost in morale before this starts Dyir. You're the team leader."
Carud bounced his knee up and down a few times and stared in the direction of Violat "Fine."
He opened the audio circuit to full so his voice would be cast throughout the shuttle of sixty plus Mandalorians and took a few nervous breathes.
"Two weeks ago," he started "something happened that hasn't happened in a long, long time to us Mandalorians. We were massacred. We all knew it would be a matter of time before the Yuuzhan Vong turned on us with lethal intent on their minds. Our death tolls haven't been that high since the Battle of Malachor a millennia ago, the galaxy thought we were dead. But we lived on in scattered clans doing what we do best: soldiering. And for a very long time that was how we made our living. Now a threat that has conquered most of the Outer Rim turned their sights on us, they inflicted horrible losses to our forces but did we loose? No we didn't, we inflicted just as many casualties on them and kicked them off our planet. Now there is a time for mourning and a time for action, there will be a time for mourning the ones we lost but it isn't now. Right now is where we have to make the sacrifices they made count for something. We can't fail today, or the deaths of a third of our population will have been in vain. I don't want to see a single living Yuuzhan Vong warrior when today is done, but I want to see each and everyone of your sorry mugs in the mess hall of a Star Destroyer when the GA task force arrives. Do I make myself clear?"
The sixty plus group rose into one voice "OYA!"
Carud let a grin creep across his helmeted face "Good."
The ship bucked once and sent a few of the Mandalorians stumbling forward.
"What was that?" Carud asked as he climbed into the cockpit.
"Dovin basal." Yunauli Drau said simply as he began to shut down all the ships systems except it's scanners. "We're being pulled out of hyperspace."
"Any enemy ships around?"
"Scanner is picking up something big heading our way, could be one of their picket ships?"
"Right then," Carud said turning back to the passenger bay "Lock and load, hostile craft inbound."
The lights in the shuttle went off as Drau shut down everything, even the scanners. The boarding hatch was between the cockpit and passenger compartment. Carud, Tyran, Volar, Miles and the other supercommandos all turned on the night vision and took up positions behind the passenger seats and aimed their rifles in the hatches general direction. Kial Volar was positioned on Carud's left flank while the Barabel Corin Haig was kneeling to his right. Both of them were wearing the common green color Mandalorian Armor. Tyran was crouched down behind the row of seats in front of Carud with a couple of red armored Mandalorians Carud couldn't recognize at the moment.
"What if they don't come in through the main hatch?" Volar asked on the helmet circuit.
The comment was met by explicit comments of complaint and were silenced as a dull clanking noise began to echo through the shuttle. It wasn't long after that that the main hatch began to glow a bright orange color.
"Don't open fire until there are a few of them inside the shuttle." Carud said. Pieces of the door began to fall away in giant clumps of superheated metal.
"Steady."
The hatch flew off of its bracings and smoke began to fill the already dark shuttle. The unmistakable sound of armor on durasteel began to fill the shuttle.
"Now!"