Mon Calamari

All thirteen of her Warriors, dressed head-to-toe in black body armor and holding their facemasks in hand, were gathered around the huge wooden table in the center of the room.

The table was a beautiful thing: solid Wroshyr heartwood, imported directly from Kashyyyk. It was very hard to buy on the Black Market and almost impossible to get anywhere else. She knew that in Mon Cal's humid air the wood would probably rot in a matter of weeks, but it was a temporary extravagance that Jolee Uruc thought she rather deserved.

After all, it wasn't every day that she increased her already-considerable foothold within the Empire.

She leaned back in her chair, resting her hands behind her head and putting her feet up on the table. She sighed contentedly and closed her eyes. She was well aware of her Warriors waiting for her orders, but she kept them waiting anyway.

Eventually, one of them cleared his throat and murmured, "My lady? What is thy command?"

She opened a single eye and saw that the speaker was a Drai'munna, a human species that had yet to move past Old Basic speaking despite their technological advances.

She held up her prosthetic arm, waving a metallic finger in warning and whispering, "Shh... Just savor the moment. Victory is sweet, isn't it?"

Her newest Warrior recruit leaned over to the tall Quarren female beside him and muttered, "She's a little cocky, eh? Better to savor the moment after we're done with the-"

Uruc drew her pistol and shot the man in the head. She didn't even open her eyes to aim, just drew and pulled the trigger. The Warrior was blasted off his feet, dead before he hit the ground a half-meter away.

Uruc twirled the pistol around her finger absently before holstering it again and shifting to a more comfortable position.

She had always been a crack shot with blasters. She'd never known how or why, but her shots always seemed to hit their targets. She had honed this skill until she was now almost as accurate from long distances with a typical blaster as veteran special forces snipers were with high-power projectile rifles. It was a gift, and one that had not been squandered.

It was fifteen minutes more before she opened her eyes and said, "Okay. Let's run over the plan one more time, shall we?"

The Drai'munna warrior, whose name was Fallon, snapped a fist to his chest and murmured, "As is thy bidding, my lady."

Uruc reached down into her boot and pulled out a well-worn holoposter, rolled into a tube. She unrolled it across the table, tacking down the edges with throwing knives from her belt. The poster showed the three-floor schematics of a large building. A military command outpost, in fact.

"Fallon," she said, "You're in charge of security systems. Make sure no one is able to see in or out of the building. Tint the windows with the code I've given you."

He nodded. "It shall be done."

She turned to the Quarren, tapping the diagram of the roof area with her mechanical hand. "Uisha, you're our eyes and ears. Find a good position on the roof and pick off anyone who comes too close. If they mobilize air support, use your rockets."

The Quarren female made a quiet squishing noise with her mouth-tendrils and blinked her large eyes slowly, her kind's version of a human nod.

"Tallnaka," Uruc said, turning to the single massive Wookiee Warrior, "you're in charge of intimidation. Keep the hostages in line once we've secured the three floors."

The huge black-furred Wookiee barked and growled, to which Uruc replied, "I don't know, rip the arms of one of 'em and roar really loud. You're the big furry one; think up something yourself."

Tallnaka let out a rumbling howl and clapped his huge furred hands together, flexing his overgrown and sharpened claws.

"All right everyone," she said to the rest of her Warriors as she felt them decelerate, "we get in, we get what we want, we kill a few people, and we get out without losing anyone of ours. We've got everything we need to finish this op, and there'll be a bonus for all of you if this is successful."

"Ma'am," a Twi'lek Warrior asked quietly, "what exactly are we looking for?"

Uruc moved to draw her pistol, then laughed as the Twi'lek almost dived under the table. She folded her arms across her chest and said, "That's for me to know and you not to, Mis'khala. Just do your job and let the rest of us do ours. Got it?"

He slowly lowered his hands and nodded. "Y-yes ma'am."

The exit portal slowly rotated open and salty air blasted through the hold. Uruc stood and motioned for her Warriors to move. One by one, they dropped through the exit portal onto the ground below, blasters and body armor carefully concealed beneath long black robes.

With a rumble and a gusty downdraft that sent their coats flapping, her old dirty-yellow transport blasted away, quickly disappearing into the foggy distance.

The slate-gray, boxy building that was Mon Calamari Imperial Garrison Command stood out against the blue-green sky. Clouds overhead threatened to spill down rain; a good sign. If a storm was raging, the Imperials wouldn't be able to send in aerial support. Uruc could taste the airborne sea salt on her lips as she strode through the doors.

The large room within was moderately full with different beings running through Imperial business; acquiring starport visas, preparing to test for ship licenses, registering for housing in the refugee sectors across the city. Four stormtroopers stood guard near a pair of marble pillars that flanked the entrance, but they gave Uruc and her Warriors little more than a cursory glance as they passed. In fact, no one even looked up as they entered the room.

Her Warriors were careful to avert their faces from the security cams; they weren't going to get this far in anonymity just to be nailed on the cams. Uruc didn't bother, for her face was already posted on wanted signs across Mon Cal. It would be a futile gesture to hide herself now. Uruc personally liked it; it made the job more enjoyable when her prisoners knew exactly who she was.

When they were situated in the middle of the room, she motioned for motioned for her group to stop. At another signal from her, they pulled out their monstrous-looking facemasks and pulled them over their heads. Uruc pulled her pistol and shot the four stormtroopers in the back, the loud pow of her blaster ringing through the room.

She grinned as the room was almost instantly filled with terrified screams as patrons dived for cover. One of them, a human in a black armorleather coat, drew a vibroblade from his pocket, obviously trying to be a hero.

A bad move; Uruc gestured at the man and Tallnaka let out a roar that seemed to shake the windows. The massive Wookiee grabbed the man by the shoulders, hauled him into the air, and ripped his arms from their sockets with an enraged howl. Uruc's hostages screamed even louder as dark blood spattered the spotless gray floor of the room. Tallnaka howled again and tossed the man's limp body against a wall some meters away.

Uruc raised her blaster and fired at the ceiling, only needing one shot to bring all attention to her.

"Attention everyone," she said to her assembled prisoners. "You are now my hostages. Kindly stay on the floor, stay quiet, and don't try anything stupid."

Her hostages whimpered or cried or covered their heads as her nightmarish Warriors passed by them. It gave Uruc a deep sense of satisfaction; the operation was going precisely as planned.

"Follow my orders," she said, reloading her pistol and grinning widely beneath her facemask, "and the luckiest among you may make it out alive."

Imperial Governor Tallus Vonn glanced up as his second-in-command, Commander Pelano, entered the room at a little under a run. He flashed his security clearance at the stormtrooper guards who stood just within the door and called to him, "Sir! Sir, you're going to want to hear this."

Vonn brushed a strand of white hair from his eyes and motioned Pelano forward. "Come in, Commander. What is troubling you?"

"It's... uh," Pelano hesitated. "It's Uruc, sir. She's made another hit."

Vonn blinked twice and sighed, setting down the flimsi he'd been reading and motioning to the trooper guard.

"Leave us," he ordered.

The troopers snapped to attention and spun, marching from the room and closing the heavy durasteel blast door behind them. The door closed with a resounding boom, and Vonn heard a mechanical clattering as the door's many security locks clicked into place.

The Governor stared at the door for a moment, then stood from his seat and turned to the large observation port window behind his desk. The huge blue-green orb of Mon Calamari hung centered in the transparisteel viewport; a beautiful canvas of dark blues and pale greens. A large hurricane was forming near the equator, and both the North and South Poles of the planet were swathed in dark clouds. Imperial ships flashed past the viewport as transports waited to ferry their cargo to or from the system.

This was Imperial Order at its best; everyone doing their job, everyone minding their own business, everything working like a well-oiled machine.

Such a calm paradise from a distance. But on the surface, Mon Calamari was nothing short of a battlefield.

For months now, the ruthless terrorist Jolee Uruc and her brigade of hoodlums, the Thirteen Warriors, had been hounding Imperial outposts across the planet. They struck here, stole equipment or killed civilians, then faded into oblivion, only to resurface weeks or months later to make another, even bolder hit. Every investigation turned up nothing but dead ends, and any troop mobilization against her just drew her attention, created more potential targets. There was little anyone could do to stop her, and few who even dared to try.

Vonn sighed and rubbed his eyes wearily. "Where this time?"

"Sir?"

"Uruc. Where did she strike this time?"

"Planetside Imperial Garrison Command," Commander Pelano replied. "Saiton City. She took hostages, sir."

"Oh no," the Governor said. He half-turned and said, "Is everyone all right?"

"Four of our trooper guards at the door as well as two of our C-and-C officers. Damage to the facility itself totals to a thousand credits with-"

"I'm talking about the civilian casualties," Vonn interrupted, irritated at the man's apparent lack of concern. "Civilian casualties."

"Um... total, sir."

"What?"

"The civilian losses were... complete, sir," Pelano said slowly. "They planted a bomb within the building while they were there, and they detonated it when they left. No one survived."

Vonn buried his face in his hands. "By the Emperor's Hand... what were those heartless schuttas after?"

"We... don't know."

"Care to run that by me again, Commander?"

Pelano tightened his lips and murmured, "We have no clue. The first thing they did was cut the security cams and tint the windows. And the subsequent explosion rendered any other computer terminals inoperable. We believe they were after prison security codes in order to free some of their Warriors that were captured during a raid a few months ago."

Vonn cursed and spun back to the commander. "Damn it, Pelano, how are they always able to know where we're weakest?"

"Sir?"

"Three-quarters of Garrison Command's security detail were away on training exercises today and someone kriffed up and forgot to repost any reserves! It was a single weak spot that would have lasted for less than five hours! How did they know precisely when to strike?"

"I... I don't know, sir," Pelano said. "I would have to assume-"

"There is only one way," Vonn interrupted. "One way they could know our day-to-day military procedures with such accuracy. They have a mole within the Imperial forces here."

He turned back to the viewport and said, "Commander Pelano, you have new orders. I want you to call in Imperial Intelligence, get a Spook down here, and track this mole down. Use any methods necessary, but find him."

"But sir!" Pelano insisted. "My work with the local authorities-"

"I don't give a damn about your gruntwork, Commander. Find this mole, arrest him, and execute him. Now leave me; I have important business to attend to."

Pelano hesitated briefly, then snapped to attention and saluted. As he left, Vonn turned back to the large transparisteel window with a sigh.

Too many deaths, he thought, shaking his head ruefully. It won't be long before Lord Vader himself hears of thesituation here. This has to be dealt with now.

He turned back to his desk and picked up his handheld comlink. He entered a calling code and waited, impatiently tapping the tip of his boot against a desk leg. After four hailing tones, a female said, "Office of Imperial Intelligence. Please state your business with us today."

Vonn took a deep breath, then said, "This is Mon Calamari Governor Tallus Vonn, clearance code Bantha-Bravo-Thirteen-Thirty-Eight. I must speak to Director Armand Isard as fast as possible."

"Yes sir," the female voice said. "May I inquire as to the nature of your business with the Director?"

"You may," Vonn said. "I have a bounty to post on all Imperial channels."

"For whom?" the female said.

"Jolee Uruc."