Max laid on the ground with his electrobinoculars in one hand and his rifle in the other, doing his best to remain unseen. Snipes and Hype were on either side of him. Hype was rapidly typing on his portable computer console while Snipes kept his rifle trained on the target area. Max looked through his binoculars to get a better view. The target area was a small Imperial outpost, too remote for any reinforcements to get there before Max's men were done with it. What made this outpost a target was not just that it was Imperial, but it had just received a weapons shipment, a shipment that Max was more than willing to take off the Empire's hands.
He lowered his binoculars and looked back at Hype, "You in yet?"
The slicer didn't look away from the monitor, "I don't see their security mainframe anywhere on the network. It must be a stand alone. I can get the outer doors open, but I'll need to be physically at the terminal to get the base codes."
Max nodded, "Do what you can. Let me know when you've cracked the doors." Max looked forward and keyed his comm to Deuce, "Deuce, come back."
"You got me, boss."
"Status on the motor pool?"
"Those STs are as good as useless. We're on our way back to checkpoint two."
Max nodded, "Excellent. Lead out."
Hype stowed his computer and readied his rifle, "I've got the doors ready for us. We're good to go."
Max smiled, "Perfect." He keyed up his unit wide channel, "Second and third squad, green light. Move in." He closed his comm and looked back at the rest of first squad, "Let's go, boys." They all stood up and followed Max toward the outpost. The Stormtroopers on patrol, the white-clad, faceless enforcers of the Empire, didn't notice the intruders approaching until it was too late. They saw them and brought their rifles to bear, but not before one was picked of by a long-range shot from Snipes, and the other two fell to combined fire from the squad. They all took up defensive positions at the door and Hype hit a button on his arm console that sent a signal to the door. The lock clicked and the door slid open, allowing them to all file in. They secured the hall and moved through to the next room. Inside, the halls and rooms were all the same boring squared configuration decorated in the same tasteless dark grey. Hype worked his magic on the door and it opened to reveal several surprised Stormtroopers. Conner tossed a grenade into the room before they could react. They pushed into the room and checked the Stormtroopers, making sure they were dead.
Max knelt down next to Hype, "Where's the mainframe from here?"
Hype consulted his arm console and pointed as he spoke, "Through that door and two hallways that way. Expect guards."
Max nodded, "Right. Let's move." The squad moved through the next door and advanced down the hallway. They met up with Deuce's squad at the intersection to the next hallway and pressed on. They came to the room with the outpost's security mainframe and deployed into defensive positions around it. Max stayed on one side of the door with Conner on the other with several men poised to move in. Max nodded to Conner and the demo expert slapped a small charge in the center of the door over the lock. The device went off, destroying the lock and opening the door, and Conner tossed a spread of anti-personnel grenades into the room beyond. After the grenades did their work, Max and several other soldiers moved in to secure the room. The few Stormtroopers that survived the grenades were quickly taken down by precision blaster fire, completing the perfectly executed door breach maneuver.
Max walked through a cloud of smoke left by an explosion and came face to face with a Stormtrooper. The trooper lowered his rifle and swung his elbow at Max. Max ducked underneath the swing, grabbed the trooper's thigh, and heaved upward, throwing the Stormtrooper over his back. The trooper hit the floor and Max kicked him in the head to put him out. He knelt down and pulled the trooper's helmet off, once again not surprised that he wasn't looking at his own face. Not long after the Battle of Utupau, the Empire began active recruiting of natural-borns for its armed forces. They would take DNA samples from the best recruits and start cranking out clones of them. Max and his men were all Fett-pure, but the Imperial army was gradually becoming more and more diverse.
Max stood and walked up behind Hype, who was hard at work doing something clever with the security mainframe.
"What've you got?"
The slicer stared intently at the monitor as his fingers flowed over the keyboards, "They've got a triple-weave encryption locking up all the important data. Give me just a moment…" He typed several more commands into the console and something started beeping, "Got it. I'm downloading the base codes now. I've got a fix on all secure activity in the outpost. The weapons shipment is just below us in the primary storage room on the second floor."
Max nodded, "Good work, Hype. Get what you can from that terminal and make it useless when you're done."
Hype pulled a small data disk from the console, stepped back to shoot it three times, and looked at Max, "I'm done."
Max snickered, "Efficient, as always, Hype. Pack it up. Let's move, gentlemen." The group pulled out of the room and headed for the nearest lift. Two men heaved the doors open while Hype sent a stop order to the lift car. Max, Deuce, and two others hooked up their grapples and descended the shaft to the next floor down.
After examining the door for a moment, Max opened his unit channel, "Rapid descent, boys. Next group, get ready." He set a door charge on the lock and kicked away to the other side of the shaft. The charge went off and the soldiers swung into the room. Max uncoupled his winch and landed in a crouch on the floor. He immediately aimed his rifle down the hall and fired a three-shot burst at the Stormtrooper he saw, hitting him in the chest. They all made their way into the floor in groups of four. Once they were all gathered, they started moving down the rows of storage rooms until they found the one they were looking for. They blew the door open and Conner tossed in a flashbang to pacify the room. They pushed in and took down the guards. Once the room was secure, Max stowed his rifle and walked up to one of the crates. He opened the lid and was pleased to see what he was looking for. There were several rows of E-11 blaster carbines with several cases of ammo. Another crate held a set of R-21 repeaters with appropriate ammunition, as well as two boxes of various grenades.
Max closed the lid as Deuce walked up to him, "You mind telling me how we're getting these things out of here?"
Max pointed to the cargo lift at the other end of the room, "The same way they got them in here. Hype, get to work on that lift. Everyone else, secure this room."
They spent ten minutes moving all three of the crates onto the lift. Max joined them as Hype activated the lift and they started to rise. A door above them opened to reveal the sky as they came up outside the structure.
Max opened his comm channel, "Third squad, move in. Flip, green light. You're clear to attack." The cargo loading area came alive as the guards were attacked from two directions. The guys on the lift opened fire from their position, third squad brought heavy fire from where they were, and Flip and the gunships laid down a suppressive fire pattern around them as they descended on the loading area. The dozen Stormtroopers were taken completely by surprise and fell in moments. Once the area was secure, they rendezvoused with third squad and Flip brought the gunships down to the lift so they could load the crates. They loaded the crates in and piled into the gunships before closing up and heading for orbit.
On the way up to the Golden Dawn, Max looked at his mission evaluation on his arm console. He originally thought this would just be a resupply mission, a mission to relieve the Empire of some of the goods they needed. However, the operation turned out to be fairly lucrative, as well. As it turned out, Hype managed to wire out somewhere around ten thousand credits worth of officer payroll while he was fiddling around in the computer system. That chunk of change along with the weapons, all in all, was a decent haul.
Unloading the weapons was an easy task once the gunships docked with the Dawn. Max made a direct line for his quarters once they docked to write up all the appropriate logs of the successful mission. He added the ten thousand to their account and looked it over. They had well over a solid million to their name, not to mention the solid assets they owned.
Max leaned back in his chair and looked out the window at the stars. A lot changes in two years. Even more changes in almost twenty years. The Gammas had done very well for themselves during the eighteen years after they deserted the Empire. It didn't take more than two or three jobs for their name to spread amongst the mercenary community. They completed their first few jobs with their usual military efficiency, catching the eye of several higher price clients. It was these clients that also made the mistake of switching the Gamma's name with their ship, but the mistake stuck. Everyone liked the ring of "the Renegades". That and the ship had gone through six names by now entirely due to indecision on everybody's part, having finally settled on the Golden Dawn. It didn't take long for the Renegades to be swamped with high price jobs from high profile clients. This was a good problem for a mercenary group, but Max still needed to be careful just how high profile the client was. If he slipped up, it could bring the Empire down on them.
Only in the last couple of years had the last of the Renegades gotten used to the freedom of freelance contracting. Where the modifications they made to their armor and weapons before were limited by regulations, when they cut ties with the Empire, customizing took on a whole new view. Whereas most of them simply changed the color and removed a piece here and there to make it more comfortable, there were those who went completely overboard with customization. Conner, for example, had painted his armor completely black with detailed orange and yellow flames on the gauntlets, torso, and boots. Deuce colored his armor a dark blue with a bone white skull and crossbones on the chest, a design which took Max by surprise given his XO's normally reserved manner. Splint had all the medics go with a dusty gold with a big red medical cross on the front and back of their chestplates for quick identification. Max had removed the bicep cuffs and cod piece of his own armor to make it more comfortable. Besides the traditional Republic grey with maroon shoulder bells and stripes on the thigh cuffs, the most visible modification was his helmet. Not long ago, he'd taken a fusion cutter to the faceplate and removed most of it, leaving only the parts that protected his cheeks and jaw line. He replaced it with a curved, one-way mirror visor that was essentially a slightly larger version of the "T" visor on Phase I armor. It greatly expanded his field of vision and worked well with the helmet HUD. To top off the ensemble, he'd added a jetpack for long jumps and quick escapes. The varying looks of their now individualized armor was often cause for some to mistake them for a Mandalorian splinter group. Though he missed his days in the Republic where they had a cause to fight for, Max couldn't say that he didn't like the liberty of freelance contracting.
Max leaned his chair back and kicked his feet up on his desk to catch a nap. He awoke to the lurch of dropping out of hyperspace a few hours later. He looked out the window to see the jungle covered world of Felucia beneath them. About a year after they deserted, the Renegades moved into an abandoned Republic facility on Felucia, formerly Outpost 18 ironically. They knew it was the last place the Empire would look for them. A shield generator and a series of auto turrets kept the local wildlife from tearing the place apart when they weren't around. Max rose from his seat and headed toward the bridge as the ship dropped down into the moist atmosphere.
Max walked down the thin hallways that the Renegades had taken the time to paint up with a traditional Republic maroon and grey scheme, much like the rest of the ship. As he made his way to the bridge, he walked by two of his men as they talked to each other. Max could only hear part of the conversation as he walked by, but what he heard was enough to unsettle him.
"…about how 48 got iced last week. I heard it was an ambush. Twenty or thirty stormies just sprung out of nowhere."
"Yeah, and with 96 buying it last month, that puts us two more down. Maybe we should talk to…"
Max clenched his jaw at the reminder of two of his men's deaths. He put it aside for now as he stepped onto the bridge. Deuce was in the chair, making sure things ran smoothly as always, Flip and one of his pilots were manning the nav boards, and Sparks was at the engineering console making sure nobody tampered with his precious adjustments. Deuce looked back and immediately vacated the chair at seeing Max walk in. He didn't bother sitting, just leaning on the back as he watched the thick jungle canopy roll on beneath them through the forward viewport. The corners of Max's mouth turned up in a slight smile. He remembered being stationed here back in his Republic days, and how much he hated it. He swore he would never come back to this Force-forsaken planet if he could help it. Now, it was one of the most beautiful planets in the galaxy.
The base came into view on the horizon, the glow of the base shield illuminating it through the fog. Max leaned over the back of the chair and punched his command code into the console on the arm. He transmitted the code and a moment later the shield dropped. Flip brought the Dawn down on the pad with practiced skill and the Renegades started getting up to get the weapon crates from the cargo bay. Max left Deuce in charge and left the ship for his quarters. He walked into the command center, actually a comms center that had been refurbished for command purposes, and the lights flickered on at detecting his presence. He looked around as the monitors and consoles in the room came to life and shook his head. It was starting to get a little dirty. The remains of someone's last meal were sitting at the comms console and somebody left their helmet at the sensor board. Max made a mental note to check the duty rosters for the command center from before they left on their last job and meet out the appropriate disciplines while he walked through the room to his quarters. They may be civilians now, but Max continued to run the Renegades with strict military discipline.
Max found his door a little ways down a nearby hallway, formerly Commander Bly's quarters. He punched in his code and stepped through the door when it opened. Max took in the room at a glance and shook his head again. He'd left several sets of dirty clothing lying around on the floor and his bed wasn't made. He was half tempted to drop and give himself fifty right there if he didn't have so much to do.
After tidying up the room some, Max walked into his office and sat down in his chair. The commander's desk that came with the quarters he'd been stuck with was matte black and big enough to land a small cargo ship on. Very unlike his usually clean self, the top of the huge desk was cluttered with datapads and sheaves of notes and paper, most of it being job opportunities he had yet to sort out. He waded his way through the paper to find his desk console and pushed the button to raise the monitor. The console blinked to life, showing a list of all the job requests various clients had sent to his mail account. Max slowly scrolled down through them, returning and refusing the kidnapping and abduction missions, and screening through the assassination missions to see if any of them were targeted at an Imperial officer. Many of them, lately, had been small-time individuals having trouble with local crime gangs and thug rings.
Max opened one job file from one of the regulars, an anonymous client from Alderaan. Max usually accepted jobs from them. The jobs were almost always targeted at the Empire, and they were things the Renegades could do to stay sharp and on their toes. Max didn't really know much about the client, nor did he care. All he cared about was that their credits were good and they always paid in full and on time. All he knew about the client was that they were some kind of noble from Alderaan. Max saved the job and stashed it in a file before turning his attention to the disaster area that was his desk. He had a lot of work to do.
As Max ran through the mess of papers on his desk, he came across one that was part of a personal project. It was a supply list from an Imperial base they'd infiltrated almost three years ago. Max had kept it because it had some listings that were unusual. It had several orders for various kinds of large-scale space station parts. What puzzled Max was that the base was a small installation that didn't even have its own fighter squadron, much less a space station. And oddly enough, none of the parts mentioned on the list were present at the station, even though the manifest said they'd taken delivery two weeks earlier. This was just one of many such instances, all of them alike: a supply list with large station parts, all of which nowhere to be found on the base. Max also found that all the parts had the same routing number, directing them all to the same place. Max couldn't figure out where these supplies were going or what was being done with them, and really all he could figure out was that the Imps were working on some kind of space station, and they were keeping things pretty tight under wraps. Though, with how much was going toward the project, it would have to be a pretty darn big station. Max shrugged as he filed the form with others like it.
Max's mind continued to wander as he cleaned up his desk. He couldn't help but think about the snippet of conversation he'd heard on the ship. Clearly his men were starting to worry about the death toll. Out of the thirty six men they'd started out with, only sixteen of them remained. They'd all been picked off down through the years, some by bounty hunters and others by missions gone bad, and the numbers were starting to dwindle further. Recently, they'd lost four men in as many months, and Max couldn't replace them. Max would consider anyone for recruitment, but they had to meet two criteria before he'd ever actually let them in. First, they had to be a former Stormtrooper; second, they had to be Fett-pure. Max simply didn't trust the fighting skills of natural-borns, who often went through a coddled and mothered childhood before even being able to train to fight. They'd taken in a few stray Stormtroopers who'd become disgusted with how the Empire did business, raising their numbers to twenty. The problem was with the Empire cloning fresh natural-born templates, the Fett-pure clones were being driven into the minority, meaning recruitment options were becoming slim. Whether he wanted to or not, the day was soon coming that Max would have to start accepting natural-borns.
Max finally filed the last of the reports only to face an unenviable task. The mess in the comms room meant the same thing the mess in his own room did. It meant the Renegades were getting sloppy, which mean a surprise inspection. He stood from his chair and left his quarters to head toward the barracks. The barracks building was a set of two merged domes, one dome housing the locker room and prep area, and the larger of the two containing the living area. The door to the locker room slid open and Max just hung and shook his head. He didn't mind his men unwinding after a job well done, but that didn't mean they were allowed to leave their armor and equipment all over the place when they geared down. Everyone was in for a good reprimand for this. He walked into the barracks to find everyone having a good time and enjoying themselves. Max's men were an extension of himself, literally and figuratively. He hated to punish them for something like this, but it had to be done to maintain their military discipline.
"Attenhut!" Max's called out order made the barracks come alive with activity. Everyone started scrambling back to their bunks and snapping to attention. Once everything settled down and Max put them at ease, each Renegade was standing at parade rest by his bunk. They all knew what Max's presence here meant. It meant they should have cleaned up before his surprise inspection. Max started walking down the row of bunks on his left, checking each one thoroughly as he went. He came to 88, Spanner, one of Sparks' engineers, and looked his bunk over. Everything was in good order except for one fairly major infraction. Attached to the bunk above his was a twenty five by thirty centimeter poster of a scantly clad woman.
Max stood up and looked at Spanner, pointing at the picture, "What's this?"
Spanner's eyes darted around as he thought of an answer, "My…daydreaming catalyst, sir."
Max looked him in the eye, "If it's not gone in two seconds…"
Spanner quickly snatched the poster from the bottom of the bunk, wadded it up, and held it out to Max.
Max accepted the ball of paper, shaking his head, "You know the rules. Report to maintenance for punishment detail."
"Yes, sir." Spanner snapped out a smart salute before turning and leaving the barracks. Max didn't mind his men talking to and thinking about members of the opposite sex, but he didn't want provocative images posted all over the walls of his barracks.
As Spanner left the barracks, Max turned around when he heard someone snickering. He located the offending party and pointed at him, "You."
The snickering soldier straightened up, "Yes, sir."
"You want to join him?"
"No, sir."
"Then shut your ration hole. You all know it's not funny when someone gets punished. Not on my command." He pointed at the floor, "Forty. Right now."
"Yes, sir." The trooper hollered as he dropped to the floor and proceeded to crank out forty push ups.
As the soldier finished up, Max continued going down the rows of bunks, making mention of infractions to cleanliness and discipline where he found them and meeting out the appropriate punishment. Fortunately, besides sending Spanner out on punishment detail, he only had to dish out a few dozen push ups every now and again.
He ended his inspection at the door before turning to address everyone, "All right, 'Gades, would someone care to explain to me the reason behind the mess in the locker room?" Silence was his response.
"I want it cleaned up in ten minutes and there's going to be an early lights out tonight for it. As you were."
Max left the barracks and appropriately disposed of Spanner's poster before walking back to the command center. He always hated dealing with his men like this. He wanted them to enjoy their time off, but they all also needed to maintain their military discipline. His men had been having these slacking moments every now and then for the last year now. Max was starting to think the cause of the problem was something they all suffered from. They had no cause to fight for. Money was merely a means of survival, and they had plenty of that. They had no cause ever since they split from the Empire. Without something, some purpose to fight and work toward, the usual discipline that marked their lives was beginning to slack.
Max dropped into his desk chair when his comm channel beeped. He hit the receive button and the screen rose from the desk with Conner's face on it.
Max sat back and leaned on one arm of his chair, "What's up, Con?"
"Sorry to bother you, boss, but I've got a client on the buyer channel who says he wants to speak with you."
Max raised an eyebrow, "Name?"
Conner shrugged, "Didn't give one, but he won't talk to me. He insists on talking to you."
Max frowned. The buyer channel was the encrypted frequency that the Renegades gave to their regular clients for ease of access. Normally they were rather forthcoming with information, not shady like this. It was cause for alarm.
Max nodded slowly, "Put him through." A moment later, Conner's face was replaced by a green-skinned Rodian with bulbous golden eyes and short ear stalks. There was a grey-skinned Twi'lek fondling him over his shoulder.
"You are Max of the Renegades?" His Basic didn't even have a Rodian accent, leading Max to believe he was a liaison of sorts.
Max nodded, "That's me. Who are you?"
"I am Sharkor, emissary of his eminence, Jabba the Hutt. I have a special mercenary assignment that requires men of your particular skill level."
Max's frown deepened, "Since when has the Hutt been willing to give lowly mercenaries like us work? Last I knew, he was more interested in collecting the Imperial bounties on us rather than helping us out."
Sharkor calmly gestured toward Max, "If there has been any misunderstanding between you or your men and his grace, he asks that we all look past such trivial matters in light of new business opportunities. His excellency is most eager to put your skills to the test in an assignment that would be mutually beneficial for all."
Max leaned forward and leaned his arms on his desk, "Now answer me this: How does 'his eminence' expect me to trust him when he calls me on a confidential comm frequency I never gave him? I never have trusted the Hutts, and I don't think they'll be giving me reason to any time soon."
Sharkor waved his hand defensively, "The mighty Jabba asks that you look past any misconceptions or misunderstandings that may have caused us to be enemies in the past. He is eager for future business opportunities with the Renegades."
Max shook his head, "Too bad the Renegades don't say the same thing. I'm sorry, but I'll have to pass on whatever your assignment is." He reached for the disconnect button.
Sharkor shooed his female entertainment away before getting Max's attention, "His eminence is offering a reward of three million for the assignment."
Max's hand stopped at hearing the amount. Three million? That would effectively quadruple their current assets. It was the largest payment they'd ever been offered. Max kept his face passive to not give away anything, but his brain was working in overdrive. If they took this mission for the Hutt, they wouldn't need any other missions for a long time. The 'Gades were a bunch of low maintenance guys and a total of four million could carry them for a very long time. It might even be the last mission of their careers as soldiers. The only reason he really had not to take the job was because he didn't trust the Hutts, but if this emissary was willing to deal, maybe he could make it a little more secure.
Max narrowed his eyes, "Four million. One in advance, three on completion." Max pointed at the screen, "And your word that there's no funny business."
Sharkor nodded, "You will have them all. I will send the advance payment to your account personally. The target is an Imperial construction facility on Abregado Rea. The voluminous Jabba asks that you reacquire a certain piece of data for him. It is a disk containing engineering data on the inner workings of his palace and personal transport craft, obviously information he would rather that no one but himself see. Get into the facility, reacquire this disk, and the full payment will be yours."
Max nodded, "Send us the data, and we'll get your disk."
Sharkor pressed some buttons on his console, "I'm sending all the appropriate data now. You are a shrewd negotiator, Max, and I look forward to further dealings with you. Until then, farewell." Without another word, his image winked out, leaving Max's screen blank. Max sat for a moment thinking about the decision he'd just made hoping that he hadn't just done something stupid. He opened the files he'd just been sent and looked them over. He called up the base schematics he'd received on the holoprojector and just looked at them. The schematics were surprisingly detailed. For data this good, the Hutt's source must have been a man on the inside. For a crimelord, Max had to admit he was well informed.
Max hit his comm button and Conner reappeared on the screen again, "Yeah, boss?"
"Announce a briefing for tonight at 2100 for a mission tomorrow. We've got work to do."