It doesn't really matter where you live, if the holocomm goes off at three in the morning, local time; you know it's usually trouble.
When your husband is a special forces major, such a call is an even more worrying event than it might be usually be.
When he's leading the best unit in the Galaxy, it's always trouble.
Without getting out of her warm bed, Elara reached over to the holocomm she always left by the sign of her bed when Junn was away, hoping it wouldn't sound outside of office hours, and slapped the accept call button.
It was who she dreaded.
"Elara," General Garza said. "I need you to come into my office immediately. Don't disturb Haran." The matter-of-fact instruction not to disturb her three-year-old son hit Elara in the gut like a punch.
"The Major?" She asked, dreading the answer.
"This line isn't secure enough me to discuss that, Elara. I'll be in my office at the Republica building."
The mention of the building, in which the general's apartment was situated, brought a whole host of demons into being.
"I'm on my way." She responded, before slapping the end call button. She had always known this day would come. That knowledge didn't make its arrival any easier.
Numbly, she pulled on the uniform of the Republic Medical Corps, or MedCorps, as it was usually referred to. She had accepted the sideways promotion into the dedicated medical Corps when Haran came along, simply because SpecForce frontline operations were no place for pregnant soldiers. She'd hated letting Junn out from under her thumb, simply because Jorgen told her he still retained his eye for the fairer sex. Having the Cathar as her husband's XO made it possible to relax a little, plea because he came from the school of military training which never left any man behind, or allowed CO's to play away the instant their wife wasn't around.
Looking at the two speeders in the landing bay, Elara decided her company car, a liveried, but relatively anonymous Coruscant Motor Works airspeeder, or CMW for short, would be far more discreet than the family private speeder, a Kuati luxury model with a top speed approaching the sound barrier and a surprising number of seats, along with the inevitable modifications, such as chaff dispensers, a target lock warning system and a pair of light blaster cannons, not to mention the capital ship grade transparisteel windows and dura-alloy body panels that gave it the survivability of a light tank against anything short of capital ship grade weapons.
One of the few company features her CMW did come with was a full set of blue lights, allowing her to cut through the night traffic quickly on her way to visit Garza.
When she arrived, the general was in casual dress, cupping a snifter of correlian whiskey.
"19 hours ago, the Major sent me a message to inform me he was commencing Operation Proverb, a strike against imperial holdings on Barenthia V, in the mid-core. 15 hours ago, when the operation was overdue, I received this message." She pressed the button on the arm of her chair.
"General." A helmetless Cathar she recognised all too well said, holding on to one of the FM handles next to the holotransmitter of a BT–7. "We ran into some serious trouble on Barenthia. SIS missed a sensor array, and they must been tracking us the whole time we were advancing down the ravine.
First we knew of it was when half-dozen hover-tanks crested the next rise and opened fire with everything they had. Half of the Safecrackers and two of the Blackmoons went down instantly, before we returned fire. We lost another half-dozen retreating. The major wasn't hit, when we got back to the Avenger, they were waiting for us there too. The Major turned to me, and told me I was in command, and to get everyone home. Then he got the suppressor off his rifle, handed it to me, and told me to give it to Haran when he was six…" The Cathar's voice broke off briefly, and Elara saw several tears trickling down his face. "Then he hefted his rifle, told me to look after Elara for him, and charged them alone. He was still shooting when we raised the ramp. Then we had Imperial fighters incoming, and we lost him on sensors." The Cathar paused briefly, before continuing far more formally. "General Garza, it is my sad duty to report that Major Junn Stormgrin is missing in action, presumed dead. He passed command to me before he became detached from us. I'm sorry, we lost him." He continued, his face more visibly wracked them before. "I'm sorry, Elara. We lost him."