Imbaar - Imperial Supply Base and Weapons Emplacement

Taking the base had taken no more than an hour and a half. Anyone not under cover was taken out by the rebel sharp shooters. The jammers made sure they couldn't call for assistance until one of the saboteurs snuck up and managed to temporarily deactivate it while the main group stormed the barracks section and facilities building, taking a good chunk of the garrison by surprise. The technicians and crew men who were operating the hypervelocity gun didn't last much longer either. It was pretty clear that no one was expecting an attack on a lowly supply base and since the rebel's ship had utilized a stealth field generator, there hadn't even been time for a quick response force to be sent. When all was said and done, Luke stood in the command center of the base, glancing at holo-displays of the super star destroyer and the station. They had managed to take the center before the techs had wiped the system and there was a decent amount of it to look over.

Luke scratched his chin as he, Rianna and Col gazed at their two prospective targets. "Well, which one are we boarding?" asked Rianna as she cleaned his weapon.

Luke winced and said, "Um... I think it would be best if you and any of the non-humans stay here."

That caused both Col and Rianna to freeze, staring at him. "Not because I don't want you to go or think you couldn't handle it;" he said, his hands up in a 'please don't kill me' gesture. "But it's going to be hard to sneak around disguised as Imperials will non-humans in our group."

Rianna frowned and then shrugged, "That makes sense. So what should we lowly aliens be doing down here while you humans are on the suicide missions?"

Relieved that she wasn't taking offense, he pointed at the viewport to the now visible HVs-2 Hypervelocity cannon. "Learn how to use that. If shove comes to shake, we may need it to destroy the station, the star dreadnought or both. Also, I'm sure this base is supposed to send all clear codes and periodic reports to the station above. Try to figure out what the codes are and the formatting of the reports."

"Oh is that all;" growled Rianna, glaring at him. "And how am I supposed to figure those out, if you don't mind me asking?"

Luke shrugged rather sheepishly. "We have a couple of slicers in the team, right? Maybe they can help."

"They're both human;" commented Col as he continued to study the holographs of the star dreadnought and station.

"That's fine. Look, let's turn the slicers and such loose on these systems and everyone else loose on the buildings and find everything we can. With any luck, we'll be able to figure something out."

Col nodded and pulled his comlink, beginning to issue orders. Luke was studying the cannon before saying, "Come on; let's go check out the firing control facility. Grab a couple techs and one of the slicers, too."

Rianna smiled and put her weapons components away. "Let's go."

As they headed that way, she commed the techs and slicer before asking, "So, which are you going to board and how are you going to do so?"

Luke shrugged slightly. "I was thinking the station. An explosion of its size would at least drop the super star destroyer's shields. After that, we can use that cannon, assuming our techs can figure it out, to finish it off."

"And what about the fleet in orbit?"

Luke chewed the inside of his cheek before sighing, "We'll deal with it when it becomes an immediate issue. One step at a time."

Rianna nodded uncertainly as they strode back out into the muggy air. The two techs, a Bith and a Ishi Tib, and the slicer, a very young human dark skinned woman, waited for them outside. "Right;" said Luke, "let's take a look at this technological marvel."

The young slicer looked eager. She had three datapads on her belt and a backpack of gear in it. "I can't wait to see what kind of tech these Imps are using in there,"

Luke looked at her with a furrowed brow. "How old are you exactly?"

"Sixteen;" she said, "why?"

"Wow..." said Luke.

Druckenwell - the BlasTech Industries Manufacturing Facilities

Mara giggled, pretending to be ever so slightly tipsy as Yance walked her up to her apartment door. "Thanks for walking me back, Yance. I prob'ly woulda gotten lost."

The big man chuckled. "You don't drink much do you?"

"Nope;" she giggled more as she pretended to struggle with her access code. "Would you like to come in?"

Yance blushed and said, "Um... yeah. Just to make sure you'll be okay."

They entered and Mara hung her jacket up. "Would you like anything?" she asked.

"No, thank you. Do you need anything, Arica?"

Mara smiled, "You know, you can stay if you want, Yance. I certainly wouldn't mind."

Yance blushed even more and shook his head. "Oh no, I couldn't do that, not in your current state especially. Besides, we only just met."

Mara sighed, "You don't have to worry. I'm a big girl."

Yance grinned broadly. "Oh no you're not. You're just a little bitty thing. Anyhow, I should get home. See you on shift tomorrow?"

Mara pouted and said degectedly, "I suppose, if you're sure."

Yance smiled and awkwardly hugged her. "I am. Sleep tight, Arica."

"You too;" she said, giving him a little squeeze.

The door hissed shut behind him and Mara waited, using the force to enhance her hearing. When she heard the turbo lift door hiss shut, she used the force purge her mind and body of the effects of the alcohol. Yance had been right about her size and how often she drank, both of which had actually left her slightly buzzed, just not as much as she had pretended. With the help of the force, she was as alert as ever. Grabbing his commlink, she contacted her team. "Droga, it's Lady Jade. I'm ready to make my move. How does the facility look?"

"Just as we expected;" came the deep voice of one of her Dark Jedi Knights. "The security is on constant patrols and there are quite a few of them. In fact, judging by their pattern, you're going to need to get creative while you sneak around."

"We don't have the ISB agents identified and in the loop?" she asked as she changed into a tight combat jump suit and black cloak.

"Yes but with the exception of one of them, they are all in security offices monitoring security displays. We have one of those offices manned completely by ISB agents. Sending building schematics to your terminal with locations and patterns right now."

Mara stomped on her boots and hurried over to the terminal. With a few quick key strokes, she had it up. "What do you think, Emperor's Hand?" asked Droga.

"You did an excellent job;" she said. "I should be able to get in without a problem."

"On the off chance that you can't, we'll be ready to retrieve you."

Mara smiled. She had absolute faith that they would be able to get her out. She also highly doubted it would be necessary. "I'll call you if I need you. In the mean time, Emperor's Hand out."

The facility was on a power generator, leaving it with low lighting and a few dozen security guards. Mara easily spiked the lock and slipped inside. She had taken an hour to memorize the guards' positions and patterns and avoided them with little difficulty, usually by climbing onto some of the machinery or racks of pallets and crates. It was a close thing a couple times, though. Even with all of her skill, she wasn't completely silent. A couple times, she had to remain completely still in the shadows and wait for the guards to pass by. It took her an hour to get to the security center. The guards had their blasters ready. "Clearance code?" one of them asked.

"Hapspir, Barrini, Corbolan, Triaxis;" she replied.

The guard nodded. "Lieutenant Jenk, at your service, Lady Jade."

"Thank you, Lieutenant. I just need a terminal for the moment."

The lieutenant motioned her over to a vacant one. Even as she strode, he said, "We've been looking through the shipping logs and manifests from this facility. Neither indicate that the rebels are getting weapons from this facility. At the same time, weapons recovered from rebel cells also indicate by lot number that they came from this facility."

Mara frowned as she pondered that while waiting for the terminal to power up. "So we can say with some degree of certainty that the weapons came from here."

"Yes, ma'am;" said the ISB agent. "We just don't know how."

"Hmmm..."

Mara began to rifle through the information, only half paying attention since it only verified what he said. "Do the machines record the number of parts that they put out?"

"No;" said the Lieutenant. "They record by crate. Each crate carries between thirty and eighty blasters depending on what kind they are. They each also certain amounts of various parts and power packs and so on."

Mara nodded slowly. "Alright then, let's start with this: according to the news, this facility had massive upgrades about eleven years ago, making it able to double its output. Can you get the records from back then?"

With a wince, Jenk shook his head. "We'd have to get to the archives. For that and it's all the way across the facility, where the offices and the like are."

Mara mentally filed that away for later. The archives would have to wait for another night. "Alright, how about an inventory of all production machines?"

"Sure;" said Jenk, indicating a file. "That's it, right there."

Mara nodded and looked at the list, her brows rising in interest. Using her datapad, she called up the production numbers over the past couple years. "With the number of machines, droids and employees they have, they should be producing about twelve percent more product than they currently are. The maintenance shut downs ensure that their equipment is always running at peak efficiency during working hours."

Jenk took a look at the numbers and nodded. "Not sure how we missed that. You're right, of course, Lady Jade. But how do we verify that they produced the weapons and such and then shipped them away off the record?"

That was the question, of course. Mara rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "When are the crates loaded and added to the count?"

"They crates are filled at the end of each line by a set of droids who also counted the contents."

"And immediately from there, they're taken to the loading bays;" Mara said, knowing from experience from her own work. "I didn't remember any of the crates inexplicably going off on their own. Is there any sign of it on the holo-cams?"

Jenk shrugged. "We haven't been keeping an eye out for it. We will now and I'll have one of my agents start combing through the security recordings."

Mara nodded in acknowledgement, running of the records one more time before standing to her feet. "We have five more hours of shut down time left. Let's see what we can dig up."

Imbaar - Imperial Supply Base and Weapons Emplacement

Luke had never been more impressed in his life. After a quick skim through of the hypervelocity cannon's operations manual, the two techs and the slicer had rigged a way to operate the whole thing with just the three of them using the main firing control, the power regulator terminal, the communications terminal and about eighteen datapads, all of which had been quickly programmed by their young slicer friend for the express purpose of controlling the weapon. "It wasn't that big of a deal;" she said.

To add to their good news, the second slicer in their force had found a datapad with all the clearance codes, all the report configurations and everything they needed to ensure that no one in the station or on the ship above would discover that the base had been taken any time soon.

"Well that's lucky;" murmured Rianna.

Kyle Katarn frowned. "It's massively against Imperail regs for someone to have information like this recorded anywhere at all. Where did this datapad come from?"

"The barracks;" said a Mon Calamari medic. "It was in a lock box. If I were to hazard a guess, it was to help some naive trooper keep track of everything and, since no one thought this place would ever be found, much less attacked, his superiors probably let such a breach in protocol slide."

"Lucky for us;" chuckled Katarn.

Luke nodded. "Alright, gather everyone and we'll put a briefing out."

An hour later, the whole strike force was gathered in the command center. It was a mixed group. In fact, most of them weren't human. Of the fifteen commandos, only seven were human - Luke, Col, Kyle, the Slicer who had rigged the cannon, Jan and two others. "From what we could figure out, the Zeta-class cargo shuttle usually has a crew of two plus however many to unload the gear. We're going to go aboard the station with six commandos, disguised as Imperial troopers, officers and techs. From there, we're going to make our way to the cloaking field control center and sabotage it. From there, we'll make our way to a turbolaser battery and open on the super star destroyer, specifically targeting the stealth field generators. From there, we'll work out a plan to destroy the station. When the Arbalist and General Kota arrives, he'll attack the ship."

Everyone seemed to be stunned. "Um..." said Rianna hesitantly, "who's idea was this?"

"Mine;" said Katarn and he pulled up a large schematic of the station. "Stations like this have a large network of maintenance access ways and shafts, complete with their own lifts and ladders. Using them, we should be able to travel from section to section without being noticed. The only problem is going to be Skywalker's Artoo unit."

Luke half-raised his hand. "I'll take care of that. It's not a problem."

Most of them still looked pretty skeptical until Kyle said, "Trust me. A mission like this is going to be hard and dangerous but given the people we're working with, it's definitely possible. When the general gets here, it will go that much more smoothly."

Kyle chuckled. "You all seem to have a lot of faith in General Kota."

Rianna grinned and said, "When he gets here and you see him in action, you'll see why. The man's tactically brilliant on top of being a powerful Jedi Master."

Luke clapped his hands together. "Right, let's get moving. We have a lot to do before we're ready to take the shuttle to the station above."

It took less than an hour for them to be ready to go and loaded. According to the schedule, a large load of food stuffs were expected to be delivered. In fact, the delivery had been laid out and ready to be loaded before the rebels had taken the base. The human rebels who would be infiltrating the station changed into the black Imperial trooper uniforms, complete with the ridiculous black helmets. When they had all changed and switched out their regular weapons for the Imperial issued DH-17 blaster pistols and E-11 Blaster Rifles. Of course, they each carried their own weapons either hidden on their persons or in the crates of food stuffs. As they strode towards the waiting shuttle, Rianna laughed at Luke from the hover loader she was sitting on. "Hey Jedi Boy, you know what they say about a man in uniform?"

Luke sighed and resigned himself to her haranguing with some grace. "Yes;" he replied patiently.

"Well they weren't talking about that one;" she laughed.

The others joined her too and even Luke had to chuckle. These uniforms were ridiculous - all black with thick leather gloves, knee high boots and capped off with the ridiculous helmet. "I can't protest;" he said as he walked by her.

Suddenly, a hand connected with his backside. "Oh, I partially take it back. Those pants make your butt look pretty fantastic."

Luke was blushing fiercely but he managed to turn around and grin. "This coming from the girl who wear's skin tight leather pants."

Rianna laughed before growing more serious and said, "Be careful up there, Luke."

Luke squeezed her hand and smiled, "I will and I have a good crew here. We'll be just fine."

Rianna nodded before kissing him on the cheek and heading back to the command center."

"Come on, Skywalker;" called Kyle. "We have a station to board, infiltrate and sabotage."

"You got it. Let's go."

From the point that they took off to the point that they landed in one of the station's cargo bays, everything went smoothly. However, the sight of not one but two fleets of star destroyers did cause them worry. Kyle guessed that whoever was in charge of the project was there on an inspection tour at the same time that Darth Starkiller was there to defend the nation. That was even more evident since it seemed that everyone was heading towards the main landing bays. "Lucky for us;" murmured Luke. "We'll get that much further before we are noticed."

While loader droids emptied the shuttle, the rebel commandos began to move through the facility. Kyle took charge since he had taken a tour of a Sienar facility while he was a stormtrooper cadet. Before the reception of the two very important visitors was over, the commandos had disappeared into the maintenance shafts and access ways of the facility.

Orbit over Imbaar - The Sienar Fleet Systems Fleet System's Research Station

The reception was impressive. Admiral Sarn had drummed out all those not immediately working on a project to greet Grand Admiral Martio Batch and Darth Starkiller. After all the preliminaries and "pleasantries" were out of the way, Admiral Sarn took Lord Starkiller and the Grand Admiral on tour of facility while all of the personnel returned to their duties.

Starkiller was only moderately interested in the facility. It was a bit larger than the standard TIE construction factory. What did impress him was the number of Phantom TIE fighters that were ready for battle. The cloaking field control room was also quite impressive. "There are six generators over the station which is enough to hide the entire facility and they are all controlled from right here."

"Do you have a secondary command center?" asked the Dark Lord.

Sarn nodded, "We are working on setting one up right now, my Lord. We are only waiting for a few more parts and consoles and it will be ready."

"The Emperor believes that there is a rebel attack coming;" commented Starkiller. Grand Admiral Batch gave him a startled look while Admiral Sarn nodded.

"I have our weapons and shields ready to be powered up at a moment's notice. Every guard, navy trooper, navy commando, soldier and stormtrooper is standing at combat readiness, my Lord."

"Wait one moment, if you please, my Lord;" said the Grand Admiral. "Do you mean to tell me that the Rebel Alliance is insane or, perhaps, suicidal enough to send a fleet to attack a facility with an Executor-class Star Dreadnought and fleet of phantom TIE fighters defending it?"

Starkiller turned his pale yellow eyes on the man. "The man who will be in charge of this assault is a Jedi Master and strategically brilliant man named Rahm Kota. Believe me when I say that if there is anyone who can pull off the impossible, insane or suicidal, it is him. That is the very purpose of my presence here with my retinue."

Grand Admiral Batch looked highly skeptical and the Sith Lord smiled coldly. "Let's look at it this way, Admiral Batch: if you are correct, then I will simply return to my mission of hunting down the rebels after delivering a report to the Emperor that this whole project is coming along excellently. If I am correct, I will crush the rebel attack and then deliver that same report. Either way, you gain from my presence here."

The Grand Admiral gave an almost sneer. "Thank you, my lord. I'm sure your delivery of that message will make all the difference."

He brushed a hand beneath his Grand Admiral's bars as if trying to swipe away a piece of lint or debris. Starkiller's smile chilled the air. "Yes;" he said, "it will, Grand Admiral Batch. Perhaps I will visit your other projects when we are done here. I can only hope that my report with your Tarkin super weapon can be as favorable."

The Grand Admiral glared at the Dark Lord. Clearing his throat uncomfortably, Admiral Sarn said, "I was hoping to give you a demonstration of our new fighters, my Lord."

Darth Starkiller smiled. "That would be excellent, Admiral. Tell me about this advanced fighters of yous."

Sarn eagerly complied. "They are twice the size of a regular TIE fighters and have hyperdrive capabilities. They are two man craft , utilizing a pilot and a navigator/gunner. Thanks to their stealth field generators, I would pit an average fighter pilot in one of these against any of our best in the most advanced fighter we have - other than your Dark Jedi of course, my lord. There is no accounting for those strong in the force."

Starkiller nodded as they made their way to an observation deck. Admiral Sarn pulled his comlink and said, "Commander, I wish to demonstrate the effectiveness of our Phantom TIE's. Take our two best fighter squadrons in TIE Interceptors to engage one of our squadrons in the Phantom ships. Make it quick, Commander."

Starkiller watched with great interest. His own ship, the Rogue Shadow, had a stealth field generator and, if he was impressed enough with these fighters, he might ask Admiral Sarn to have it upgraded.

Druckenwell - the BlasTech Industries Manufacturing Facilities

Mara slipped back into her apartment and sighed tiredly. Their search had born quite a bit of fruit and revealed that the archives would need to be examined. One thing that they did finally learn is that single weapons were taken off the line, labeled as defective, and secretly put into crates. None of these were caught on the holo-cams, nor was the crates being loaded on to smuggler ships and shipped off world. The only reason they found it was because of two sets of recordings pulled from maintenance droids. One showed the crates being filled and the other showed the crates being loaded. Since the maintenance droids did not realize anything wrong was going on, the recordings were downloaded and archived without thought. Who was in charge of this arms dealing scheme, Mara wasn't sure yet but she would find out.

Before turning in, she stripped out of her jump suit and put on a fluffy robe and commed her special unit, updating them with the information and telling them to be ready to move in and make arrests. When that conversation ended, she was about to get some sleep but, given the thirty-two hour day, she had plenty of time and decided that she would holo-com Captain Rawshek. His face half covered in shaving gel, bare chested and wide eyed, Atharious was a site for sore and tired eyes. Bursting into laughter, Mara said, "My, my, Captain but don't you look ravishing this evening!"

Atharious chuckled and said, "I don't know about that, my Lady, but you certainly do. I apologize for my appearance but I was just so surprised to be receiving a call that I answered it without thinking. But never mind all that! How goes your mission thus far?"

"Off to a great start. We know how their getting the weapons off world. What we aren't sure about yet is who is in charge of this whole operation. That is what I want to find out before I make any arrests. How is the ship?"

"The crew is getting antsy but they are still remaining well within military discipline. I'm hoping that we either get some action soon here or that we can perhaps get some actually leave, not just white space between missions."

Mara understood how he felt. "I will try to work something out after this mission but I can't guarantee anything."

A silence followed before Mara chuckled and said, "You may finish shaving, Captain."

Atharious chuckled and said, "I'll be right back."

After a few moments, he returned with a basin and his shaving blade. As he ran the blade along his cheek and jaw. "How goes working at the factory every day?"

Mara chuckled. "Not bad. It's honest work and gives me insight about the people of the Empire, something I think is very important. My 'coworkers' are nice. We all went out for drinks earlier tonight."

"I wish I could have joined you;" Atharious said as he swiped down his cheek with his blade again.

"So do I;" said Mara with a smile. "When we get leave, you and I should go somewhere. We can disguise ourselves and spend a few days together."

"I'd like that;" he replied as he wiped the excess shaving gel. "In the mean time, do you have any orders, my Lady?"

"No; just remain as you are. Now I really must get some sleep."

"Sleep well, my Lady."