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The Beehive, Wellington, New Mandalore
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New Mandalore was once again at war.
No, that wasn't quite true, New Mandalore had always been at war.
The hybrid colony's people were a mix of clones, Kiwis and Maori and, as the vile President Harris often referred to them, they stuck out like the handle of a knife plunged into the underbelly of the Earth. When your neighbors spoke often of your impending genocide, it was wise to prepare for a fight.
So when the distant Imperial colony at Nal Kuat was hit in a vicious sneak attack that crippled the Imperial Navy, it didn't take the clan leaders of New Mandalore much to deduce that an attack on their soil wouldn't be long in coming. While enemy bombers still flew over the KDY Ring Driveyard at Nal Kuat, an alert text went out to every citizen to report to their battle stations. In preparing for the battle to come, New Mandalore was the only nation in the Galaxy where every citizen, from newborns to the elderly, had assigned positions in case of war.
Jane Jade, bounty hunter for Clan Bly, had been out celebrating with the rest of her team, the Regulators, the night before the attack. Clan Bly had won the national Rugby semi-final against Clan Cody and were now slated to face Clan Blitz in the final. The pubs around Wellington had been packed to the gills, which wasn't surprising considering Clan Bly was one of four clans that made their home in the capital. The hangover she had inflicted upon herself almost caused the ex-commando to miss the text. She only caught it when her phone chimed a second time after two minutes of non-response.
Upon reading the announcement she was instantly awake. Her eyes shot open and she leapt out of bed, taking no more than three steps to reach the shower in the next room. Not even waiting for the water to warm up she rinsed and scrubbed rapidly and was slipping on her tactical body-glove four minutes after waking up. She slapped on her black and silver beskar armor as she rushed through her small flat, scarfing down protein bars and a V Energy drink as she got ready. She armed the security system and then threw her bug-out bag into her car. Even after almost twenty years in New Mandalore she still couldn't bring herself to call her personal vehicle a landspeeder.
Her Subaru was a fusion-cell conversion. Gasoline was hard to come by in New Mandalore. There weren't any natural oil pockets under the rebel nation. The Empire wasn't much interested in refining petroleum in any in their colonies because they didn't use much of it beyond making simple plastics and the Confederacy of Earth Nations wasn't interested in selling any to a potential enemy. New Mandalore didn't mind. They always made due on their own initiative.
Traffic was steady along State Highway 2, only bunching up at the Nguaranga Interchange. The populace performed biannual preparation drills and were used to this sort of thing. Many of the other cars on the highway turned off and headed up to the flak batteries and radar installations in the hills. Jade's position was in one of the giant stilted city districts above Evans Bay in Wellington Harbor; the Beehive. The old executive wing of New Zealand's parliament, the Beehive, had been dismantled and reassembled atop the largest stilted district in the raised city. Once reassembled it had been reequipped with the most advanced sensors and communication gear New Mandalore could attain and transformed into the new military headquarters for the country.
She would not be under Clan Bly's protection there, as all government buildings belonged to the neutral Clan Bacara. Led by former Admiral Marshal Commander and the first Death Watch Prime Minister, the quasi-retired Bacara, Clan Bacara required all government representatives to renounce Clan fealty and serve for the greater good of the nation. Afterwards, ministers usually went back to their original clans but some stayed on in public service. In order to keep the Clans on equal footing the military also fell within Clan Bacara but each Clan could provide a Legion of their own to any joint effort.
She turned her car onto State Highway 1 and headed towards the armored reinforced tunnels that led into the five onion-shaped domed districts. To the south across the Cook Straight the day was clear and the peaks of the Kaikoura Ranges could be seen. Their snowy caps were melted as it was the height of summer in the southern hemisphere.
Jade had absolutely fallen in love with the natural beauty of New Mandalore. She often spent off time on hikes and SCUBA dives. Having spent their lives destroying worlds, the new immigrants, the clones and their alien dependents, had thrown their hearts into restoring the damage caused by the Empire-Earth War and conservation efforts. Jade wanted to punch something, anything, whenever she heard rumors that filtered out of America, her birthplace. The Confederacy had razed forests, burned national parks, strip mined thousands of square kilometers, leveled mountains and drained wetlands and lakes all in a manic search for raw materials to build a fleet that could rival the Empire's.
During the past year only rumors had come out of the CEN. Trade and travel had been suspended and all New Mandalorians had been repatriated. The CEN had been up to something and they didn't want anyone figuring it out until they were ready. New Mandalorians, however, wouldn't be caught as much off guard by the attack on Mars as the hundreds of Moff Hinter's TIEs that had been foolishly sitting idle on the ground on the red planet.
Once Jade had reported to her station, a SigInt Electronic Warfare Station, she had listened to news from all over the world and from further away in the Empire. The Confederate News Network cited reports from the HoloNews giving gleeful after-action reports in a dozen different languages. They were celebrating as if the victory had been their own and not by rogue Imperials or faux pirates as the Empire was reporting during those first hours. CNN wasn't identifying them either. Nal Kuat was horribly far down the Bloodstripe Run and without a campaign to take a dozen colony worlds there was no way the Earth could support a sustained attack that far from their base. If they had a hand in it at all, it would mean the attack had been merely a raid and not an invasion, Jade deduced.
Which led to the scariest thought of all, where were they heading instead.
The halls of the stilt city were filled with grim faces on Kiwis and clones alike. The CEN kept communications open between New Mandalore and themselves throughout the day, but their own military forces were put on high alert. Air bases in Chile, Peru and Australia were suddenly filled with new aircraft, while intelligence reported the CEN surface navy had put to sea and their land-based missiles had been fueled and ready.
"Do you think they'll attack us again this time around?" The technician sitting next to Jade's station asked her. The Maori woman was normally a teacher from Clan Salvo during less stressful times.
"I hope not. But if they do we've done everything we could to make ourselves ready for them." Jade tried to reassure her.
"God, l hope you are right. I still remember the last war and all the poor children." The woman looked down at her air traffic control screen, in its green light Jade could see tears in the woman's eyes. She must have been remembering all the kids killed during the Christchurch Massacre when an Australian missile had hit a packed school with poisonous gas. That incident had been the last straw for the Kiwis to pitch in with the clones and break away from rest of the Earth, earning them the eternal hatred of President Harris.
"We won't be such easy prey this time. We've got shields now." Jade said. Each of the five stilted cities, Wellington, Auckland, Christchurch, Tauranga and Dunedin had energy shields over them now. The only ones on Earth. The woman just nodded to show that she hoped it would be enough.
The cities had billets inside them for all of the people who had homes in the country side. Jade, as well as thousands of others, were required to stay until the alert was cleared. HoloNews reports were piped through the halls and rooms of the city with updates from Nal Kuat, Palpatine Prime and the deteriorating situation on the moon. Jade went to bed thinking all was well after she read a report that the Imperial Navy was dispatching two Star Destroyers to Luna to retrieve their ambassador. The sight of those two monsters in orbit should quiet down President Harris, Jade thought as she fell asleep.
She was woken several hours later by a ringing klaxon. Men and women jumped from their bunks and donned their armor before rushing to battle stations all over the city.
"Now here this. Now here this." A voice piped in over every public address system. "The Confederacy of Earth Nations has launched an attack on Imperial vessels engaged in a peacekeeping mission to Luna. A state of War exists between the Empire and the CEN. Prime Minister Taumata has ordered all New Mandalore Defense Forces onto Alert Status One. All weapon stations are to be armed and made ready."
"What happened?" Jade asked the woman she had spoken to the day before.
"I'm not sure, but look at those two big bogeys over Auckland." The teacher pointed to her screen, in her excitement she had failed to see that they were identified and marked friendly by Air Command.
"That's just the Fool and the Empress." Jade pointed out the two remaining warships in the New Mandalorian Navy. The other Acclamators that had defected with Bacara had been recycled into the stilt cities. Jade smiled at the names. Despite being named by Republic shipwrights during the Clone Wars the irony of the two remaining Acclamator labels had led them to being nicknamed the Roblin and the Phasma. "They're up there protecting our asses. Now keep an eye out and protect them."
"Light Side damn it." Another technician swore from across the bay. "My satellite is down."
"Mine too." Someone else called out. The Colonel in charge of the station rushed in and looked at the empty screens as several more vanished or turned into snowstorms of static.
"Christ. The bastards are taking out our eyes." The officer cursed the CEN's anti-satellite forces.
"Attention all commands!" The voice appeared on the PA system again. "A state of war exists between New Mandalore and the Confederacy of Earth Nations. All commands are free to engage enemy forces as they see fit. God and the Force protect New Mandalore!"
The attack didn't come in right away but everyone in the city knew it would drop on them at any moment. Living in Wellington during those hours was like standing at the bottom of a hill and watching an avalanche approach. There was nowhere to run.
To make matters worse, Mars fell. It wasn't hard to deduce that the CEN must have had someone on the inside that knocked out Mars' great planetary shield. New Mandalore's leaders doubled and then tripled the guard forces around their own shield generators within minutes of Mars' collapse. The Sol System was a busy place with long range scanners detecting hundreds of ships jumping in from just rimward of the system. How long the CEN had been squirreling away warships out there was anyone's guess, but Jade suspected it had to have been the reason for the CEN's shut down for the past year. Those ships had formed up and attacked Mars and the Empire's big tibanna factory at Jupiter. Even scarier, large groups of them vanished, jumping off again in vectors aimed at New Ryloth and the start of the Bloodstripe Run. But they ignored New Mandalore. For all their rhetoric and vitriol against their planetary neighbor the CEN chose to ignore the thorn in their side and throw their might at the 2nd Galactic Empire instead, giving New Mandalore precious days to prepare for their inevitable arrival.
Jade was one of the first people in New Mandalore to hear of the fate of Amidala City. At her station, at one of hundreds of SIGINT monitoring cubicles she heard Moff Hinter's transmission from her army's position west of the Martian city. Amidala City was being declared an Open City for the CEN Army to march in and take it without a fight. There was a wave of disbelief that swept through the halls of Wellington. The Empire couldn't have been so badly beaten that they had given up their first and largest city within three days of invasion, could they? And what did that mean for New Mandalore?
"Did Moff Hinter surrender?" The teacher asked Jade. Being assigned in the same Electronic Warfare shop they both had clearance for each other's work.
"I don't know. We were originally intercepting Imperial transmissions from south of the city but currently she's moved to the north-west of Amidala." Jade replied. She wondered what it meant that the 212th's signals continued to move to the west while the CEN Legions appeared to be converging on the Martian City. At dawn on the fourth day the HoloNews stopped broadcasting from Amidala City.
"Getting intercepts from all over the world." Another SIGINT officer announced to the large bay of technical stations. "Looks like President Harris is declaring today a day of celebration for the entire CEN. He's calling it Payback Day or some other bull shit."
"All gunners to their stations. I repeat all gunners to their stations!" The PA announcement echoed through the base. Several people left their stations to report to the flak and missile batteries ringing the city.
This is it, Jade thought. She looked over at the teacher's radar screen and watched as speedy formations of bogeys zipped through her assigned sector; a slice of the New Mandalore Maritime Exclusion Zone facing southern Australia. A few of the bogeys crossed the demarcation line and entered New Mandalore territory only to vanish from the teacher's screens within minutes. Jade imagined the targets were drone scouts or missile carriers and not manned planes. Even after thinking of the CEN for so long as a potential enemy, she had served in the Earth's armed forces once upon a time and felt a twinge of guilt at the deaths of her fellow Earthlings at the hands of her new country.
A low muffled boom rumbled through the city, as if the neighbor kid down the block was practicing his drums in his basement again. Five minutes later another one sounded out, followed by a trio of deep thuds ten minutes after that. Jade had a bottle of water at her station and noticed small vibrations ripple across the surface.
Jade's phone rang, startling her and several others in the EW shop. All phones were inactive due to government jammers designed to prevent electronic espionage. Only official orders from command could be placed through the interference. "Jade, here."
"Jane Jade, Bly-23-909? Authenticate- Rex." A passive electronic voice greeted her.
"Anakin." Jade replied. She didn't know the names but knew they had to do with clone commanders and generals during a war no one in the CEN should know anything about.
"Verified. Message start- Jade, Commander Bly here, I'm activating the Regulators for a hunter mission. Have your crew and ship meet at Landing Bay Popsicle 3. Then come up to the command deck of the Beehive and see me. Bly out. Message complete. Do you wish to replay?"
"No, I got it, thanks." Jade stood up and told her station chief that she had orders to report to command. He simply nodded and assigned another technician to watch her station.
Jade left the Electronic Warfare suite and opened up her phone again. She sent a coded message to the rest of the Regulators to meet up at the Beskar Golem and await her arrival. The code and her clearance would ensure the text got through Mandalorian jamming.
Jade entered an elevator, or turbolift as the Imperial nomenclature was rapidly becoming the fashion in New Mandalore, that contained several glass panes to allow riders to view the old city skyline as the device crawled up the sides of the city's dome. Jade didn't watch Wellington grow smaller as the turbolift ascended, as she had seen that sight many times before. Instead she tried to watch the vast multitude of hangars and service bays situated in the sides of the massive building. Hundreds of hangars were open and exposed and beyond their doors thousands of ground crew worked steadily to prepare for the oncoming battle. Jade spotted ready rooms filled with New Mandalorian pilots getting last minute updates and patrol assignments.
Out over the old city something streaked past that was almost faster than her eye could track it. A contrail rose from the city center and rapidly closed with the unidentified object, impacting seconds after launching from the ground. When the two objects met they exploded in a brief fireball before wreckage fell away from the collision and tumbled harmlessly into Wellington Harbor. Several more flashes erupted well to the north but Jade didn't spot a single ground impact of smoke rising from anywhere that she could see from her vantage point.
The turbolift opened at the top level which was a long runway edged by the original Beehive Executive Building. To Jade, the layout of Wellington's top levels always looked like those pre-war ships that ruled the oceans, the aircraft carrier. Nowadays, nobody built an ocean-going vessel of that size anymore. Everything was put into massive spaceships, or in New Mandalore's case, mammoth city domes on stilts.
Jade exited the turbolift and jogged over to the Beehive, which rose another twenty stories into the sky and was topped by a hundred meter hyperwave radio tower. A squad of guards, a mix of clones and Kiwis alike, dressed in beskar armor in the neutral colors of Clan Bacara checked in visitors to the Beehive. They took great care in checking anyone's security clearance before permitting them entrance to the command center. They took several minutes to verify Jade's identity. Their excessive dawdling caused Jade to suspect that a few of them might be Clan Salvo or Clan Cody when their government service terms ended. Once her clearance was granted she pushed through the annoying jerks and headed towards yet another turbolift which rapidly carried her to the "Bridge" of Wellington.
Named the 'Bridge' to appease the former Prime Minister Bacara's tastes and proclivity towards reenacting his former military career, the Bridge resembled no bridge Jade had ever seen. The forward wall of the room was a sprawling curved window in front of which a dozen large, cushioned chairs were arranged. Behind the chairs was a fully stocked cantina with several bartenders and a fully stocked and staffed kitchen. Stewards brought drinks and appetizers up to the officers seated in the easy-chairs while aides stood at the ready behind their commanders as they enjoyed the view before them. Jade stepped forward and looked out the window, surprised to see the men and women in the seats were staring at nothing more than a pleasant view of old Wellington.
An attendant approached Jade. In his hand he carried a small cryptokey. "Identification."
Jade held up her armored palm. The ridges in the gloves matched her own hands creating a unique mold. The attendant scanned her hand. "Jane Jade, Captain, Clan Bly. You may pass."
"Thank you." Jade said as the attendant activated the cryptokey. Immediately, holographic displays filled the room in a rainbow of colors and lights. Along the curved window was a layout of the Southern Pacific Ocean from Australia to South America. On the left side of the room was a positional map of Mars slowly rotating next to an analytical replay of the recent Battle of Luna and the destruction of the Imperial Star Destroyers Limbo and Purgatory. Near the bar was a breakdown of an intelligence report of almost fifty different types of CEN missiles, including the new Mercy-Bringer ionic proton torpedoes. Over the chairs were layouts of the known characteristics of the CEN's aircraft and space fighters, from the F-35s and F-55s to X-wings and Y-wings. There was even an update with the recently spotted B-Wing, which had made its public debut at the Battle of Luna.
Jade decided to take a moment and experiment with the new display the cryptokey had unlocked. She reached up and removed her helmet. As soon as she did so the holographic data stream disappeared from her vision. She looked around the room and noted that every single armored officer appeared to by looking at or reacting to displays and visions that weren't present to the naked eye, while plain clothed stewards and wait staff served the attendees without any reaction what so ever. She placed the helmet back on her head and everything was in the same place it was a moment ago, this time there was even incoming radio traffic from command staffs in the field across New Mandalore.
The large seats in front of the window were filled with some of the top men and women in the island nation. Prime Minister David Taumata occupied the central chair while several seats to his right were filled with armored members of his cabinet, from his Minister of the Interior to his Minister of Defense, General Morrison. On his left were six chairs occupied by former clone Marshal Commanders or their Kiwi second-in-commands who were the current leaders of the various clans within New Mandalore. In the chair next to the Prime Minister sat the elder statesman of New Mandalore, Bacara, the only person in the room that wore his old Clone Trooper armor instead of beskar. There were already rumors circulating that Taumata was going to step down and relinquish the position of head of government back to Bacara during the crisis.
Several of the Marshals glanced in her direction. She wished she could have some sense of their reactions beyond their helmets, but that was part of being a Mandalorian, you kept your feelings buried and hidden from the rest of the world. Besides, she knew she wasn't popular in New Mandalore. As an ex-American SEAL team leader, she had always been seen by a small minority as the enemy; one secret order from President Harris away from turning traitor and running back to the Confederacy.
His beskar covered in the yellow and brown colors of his former 327th Star Corps, Marshal Commander Bly stood and walked to the end of the row of chairs where he motioned for Jade to join him. Jade was nervous, she hadn't actually spoken to Bly in several months. When she had arrived in New Mandalore she had been sponsored by the famous bounty hunter Nichole Felk, daughter of Cuy'val Dar who had trained all the clones, and wife to Marshal Cody. It was assumed that their friendship would cause Jade to follow Felk into Clan Cody, but Marshal Bly ran the intelligence and Special Forces branches of New Mandalore's quasi-clan-based military. The Special Forces was where her heart was, and Clan Bly allowed her to become an independent contractor, what they termed bounty hunters with a guild and rules, and at Felk's recommendation she left Clan Cody, with its focus on foreign relations, and joined the more specialized fighting forces of Clan Bly. From what she understood, Bly had no particular reason to let her join his clan as he preferred turning native Maori into efficient ARC troopers, but Cody and Felk had worn him down on her admission. After a few successful missions with her new team, the Regulators, Bly's reluctance had been, if not erased, then eroded somewhat over the years.
Marshal Commander Bly was a hard commander. He had to be. In the past ten years he had lost thirty bounty hunters behind the lines in the Confederacy of Earth Nations. Twelve of them in the past year alone as the CEN clamped down on security breaches and began a rapid mobilization that even they couldn't quite conceal from their planetary neighbor. Results were what mattered to Bly, and Jade had heard that the Marshal never spoke of the clan members he had lost infiltrating the Confederacy. It was rumored that during the Clone War, Bly had even gunned down the woman he loved for the sake of a mission. Jade didn't know how much of that was fact or fairy tale meant to build up the mystique around the Marshals.
"Captain Jade." Bly greeted her, referring to her former O-6 rank in the American Navy. Jade much preferred to think of herself as Jade the bounty hunter these days. The life she had left behind in America seemed a distant memory.
"Marshal, reporting as ordered." Jade saluted and then gave the Bly Clan handshake to her Marshal. Each Clan had a specific way of greeting one another to recognize a fellow clan member.
"Is you team ready?" Bly inquired about the Regulators.
"Yes, sir. The Beskar Golem is fueled and standing ready on a nearby landing pad." Jade checked her HUD for the team locations. "All team members present and accounted for."
"Wizard. I have a hunch we are going to need them soon."
"Sir, we're a bounty hunting team. We're not rated as defense fighters."
"I know all about your capabilities, Captain. You're here on Clan business, not a mission for the nation."
"A bounty, sir? Who?" Jade asked. The eve of battle was certainly a strange time for a snatch and grab.
"I don't know yet. I want to keep one step ahead of Salvo's boys." Bly said. Jade wondered why Clan Salvo concerned Bly so much. Salvo was the clan in charge of internal security within New Mandalore and as such ran the police and the New Mandalore Security Intelligence Service, which ran national criminal investigations much like the FBI used to do before it got swallowed by the CIA back in the Confederacy.
"We are ready to go wherever you need us, sir. Do we know anything about when the Confeds might attack?" Jade inquired.
"It's already begun." Bly pointed towards the window where another missile streaked across the city. A well-aimed counter missile rose up and struck it down. "Sighting shots so far. Schuttas didn't even bother with an official declaration of war like they did with the Empire."
"I heard they gave it to the Limbo while their missiles were already in flight. Not much honor in that, sir." Jade pointed out.
"Regardless, they got one. The Confederacy looks at New Mandalore like something they need to scrape off the bottom of their boot. The only thing they want from us is revenge, but they want the Empire to burn even more. We're more of a side show to them."
"Are we ready for them, sir? I mean the nation; with Kiwis, Maori, clones and me, an American." Jade asked.
Bly removed his helmet, revealing his impossibly young face. He tucked his helmet under his left arm and placed his right hand on her shoulder. "We are no longer those things. We are our clans and we are Mandalore. Look around! We're one and the same; same heart, same blood. Your training is in your blood. And my blood's boiling for a fight!"
"Prime Minister, radar is detecting several thousand launches from within Zones Australia, Fiji and Peru. Zone Chile and Australia have inbound fighters." Minister of Defense Morrison announced to the command center.
Prime Minister Taumata stood up from his chair and invited Bacara to stand next to him. As the elder clone rose from his seat he turned to face the room and removed his helmet. His features were those of a ninety year old, having vowed to be the last to undertake the mysterious 'Process' that de-aged his brothers. "So it begins."
Taumata deferred to Bacara who spoke to his commanders. "Bring all city shields to maximum. Triple A batteries are to switch to zone defense and sweep their sectors. Have Commander Cody bring the Fool north to engage Zone Fiji. Commander Silver is to move the Empress west of South Island and defend against the Zone Australia attack."
"Shall I scramble my fighters, sir?" Minister Morrison asked.
"Not yet. Let them come to us. Besides, we have a surprise for them." Bacara almost grinned. Jade had heard the former Prime Minister's sense of humor had been surgically removed as a cadet on Kamino. "Activate the Pinpoint Barrier System. Bring me Corporal GamerChick."
As the Admiral Marshal Commander issued his orders three pylons rose to waste height from the floor behind him. Each of them housed a small rolling ball control meant to fit in a user's palm and several activation controls.
The rear door opened and three figures strolled in rather casually, as if they were going to see a movie rather than heading towards battle. The center figure, like the others wore white and red armor with small mythosaur symbols on the chest. Her helmet was removed and Jade spotted a shock of pink hair on a face covered with large orange gaming goggles. The other two troopers had similar wild hairstyle choices, facial piercings and specialized optical gear pulled up on their foreheads. Jade noticed the middle girl had a strange neck tattoo and only recognized it when she came closer and stood before the Prime Minister and offered a rather sloppy salute. The tattoo was a mythosaur DNA strand, the Clan signet of the smallest and least known clan of all, Clan Neyo.
Known for their technological breakthroughs, such as the mysterious 'Process' and rediscovering the formula for beskar, Clan Neyo preferred to secret themselves away in underground laboratories and develop technologies that helped New Mandalore keep an edge on the Confederacy and the Empire.
"Corporals GamerChick, NoobKiller, BadAssMoFo." That couldn't be their real names, Jade thought. "It's good to see you again. We have an inbound strike of several thousand hypersonic missiles heading for our country. It's time for you to show us, and the world, what your system can do."
"Totally green, sir." The one called GamerChick smiled. "We've been looking forward to giving the other Solars a shiny spanking."
It was obvious that Bacara only caught about half of the youthful slang, but he certainly understood the intent. He stepped aside to allow the three tech troopers access to the pylon stations. They lowered their goggles and activated comm systems that allowed them direct connections with the country's air defense radars. As they did so three small green circles appeared atop the shield barrier over Wellington, each in about a ten meter diameter. As each trooper moved their control ball one of the coinciding circles moved across the surface of the shield.
"Disintegration shields. Very advanced gear." Bly whispered to Jade. Jade just nodded and stepped forward to the window, hoping to spot the first incoming missiles.
The first missiles flew past the city shield to the north, probably meant to hit targets around the unshielded Lower Hutt. But air defense flak batteries were ready for them. The missiles streaked through zones filled with lead or blaster bolts. Scores of them were shredded or blown from the sky. Their fiery debris impacting with others of their brethren, causing a cascade of explosions to the north. Out at sea, Mandalorian trawlers and fishing boats had been situated along probable attack vectors and began launching aerial altitude charges into the sky. Massive ionic bursts erupted in front of the missile flight paths disrupting or destroying their electronic gear, causing hundreds of the projectiles to fall harmlessly into the sea, well short of their intended targets.
Still hundreds more bore in on their targets and the lanes leading to the city shields had been left purposely unguarded. As the first missiles raced in to impact the shield, Jade braced herself for the initial explosions and their telling strain on the energy defense.
But no explosion came. A second before the first missile struck GamerChick had moved her Pinpoint Barrier directly to the point of impact. The missile simply disintegrated rather than impacted, leaving nothing more behind to mark its existence than a small puff of dust in the wind.
Dozens of missiles vectored in on the shield. The largest groups or the most powerful ones were met with a PBS circle, taking the bite out of the Confederate attack. Jade looked over at the hologram projecting the defense of New Mandalore and noted that three Pinpoint Barriers were over all five of the city shields, no doubt being manned by more youthful Clan Neyo troopers like GamerChick. The circles raced back and forth as the troopers spun their control balls faster and faster. Some missiles were missed and impacted the energy shield but the vast majority of them were swallowed up by the infinite green disintegration energy.
It took twenty minutes for the attack to subside and at the end the three troopers received a standing ovation from the people inside the command bunker, Jade included. Prime Minister Taumata stepped forward and shook each of the trooper's hands. "An eighty-five percent interception rate and our shield was only dropped to ninety-eight percent during the attack. That is absolutely fantastic."
Corporal GamerChick's shoulders slumped and it was obvious to Jade that the young woman was disappointed in her performance. "Sorry, sir. We will do better next time. It's not the same as the simulators."
"We've got enemy airspeeder wings coming in from east and west." Marshal Doom interrupted. "Chilean strike force just broke the five hundred kilometer line. The Australian attack force will be in strike range in ten minutes."
"Launch our defense fighters. Notify them to stay out of our Triple A zones." Bacara ordered. "What about the enemy strike out of Fiji?"
"Cody has already engaged it with the Fool, using Auckland's shield as a secondary shield. He reports that it is well contained and some enemy fighters have started to retreat." Morrison reported.
Bly leaned close and spoke softly to Jade. "Secondary forces. The Confeds are using their best pilots and space fighters on Mars and their push down the Bloodstripe. They attack us like an afterthought."
"I disagree, Marshal. Look at those bogey signatures at the center of the attack from Australia." Jade pointed out a force of thirty strange energy readings emitting from the middle of the nearly three hundred fighters racing in from the continent to the west.
Bly noticed what Jade was indicating and placed his hands on his hips in shock. "Prime Minister, there are Imperial fighters amongst the Confederate airspeeders."
Every head turned to the holoimage of the Australian attack. It was filled with F-55s, F-35s, B-3 atmospheric bombers and a mix of older atmospheric fighters. Fighters that had proved a waste during the last war that would surely be just as much of failure in the new one. If the CEN truly wanted to start a second Blitz over New Mandalore they were using airplanes that would surely fall well short of that goal.
The thirty odd radar signatures were quickly matched to Imperial models, though there did appear some slight variation that even the Prime Minister's civilian cabinet members noticed. The Interceptors and bombers were upgraded from Imperial designs and were pushing speeds in atmosphere that no known Imperial fighter was capable of matching. They were able to keep up with the atmospheric Confederate airspeeders which had always been able to outrun Imperial fighters in an atmosphere but fell woefully short in orbital warfare.
"So this confirms things." Bly said.
"The mystery attackers at Nal Kuat are working hand and hand with the CEN. We should have suspected that was where the Confeds gained their new advanced weapons at Luna and Mars." Minister Morrison added.
"We guessed as much when their warships forced King Wozz to surrender the tibanna factory at Jupiter." Bacara said. "They didn't work in conjuncture there or at Mars with the Confederates, leading me to suspect they weren't simply Earth copies of Imperial designs. Somebody has brought an entirely new fleet of advanced Imperial gear to the Milky Way."
"You're right. the Earthlings would have had to make a century or two of advancement in twenty years to create those ships and fighters." Bly suggested.
"I've gotten reports that the CEN space fighters have longer range torpedo capabilities and we've seen their new ships at Mars. Leads me to believe these interlopers provided a lot of new tech to the CEN." Morrison said.
"By the Force, just who are these people?" Taumata groused. Bly nudged Jade with his elbow. Her Marshal wanted her to focus on the Prime Minister's inquiry did he? Well she would be ready the moment she was called into action.
Squadrons of the new Kom'rk-class fighters, nicknamed Guardians, emerged from hidden, fortified hangars all across the island. Their speed allowed them to climb quickly to forty kilometers and gain altitude on their approaching foes. The new fighters were manned by Kiwi and clones alike, ready to stand on equal footing with each other to defend their island homes.
The Triple A batteries opened up with long distance blaster fire as the enemy fighters approached the coast. Their zone controlled fire produced results almost immediately as the first Confederate aircraft ran into a wall of tibanna bolts. F-55s were perforated like Swiss cheese or simply blown from the sky. Confederate pilots, their planes breaking apart or aflame, ejected over the beaches of North Island. As their numbers thinned, the surviving Confederate pilots bunched up in sectors where flak wasn't present and turned towards the city shield from the north after crossing the coast. Under their wings they carried the new versions of the proton torpedoes they had copied from the ones retrieved from the sunken Wilderness. It was here that the Kom'rks found them.
The newer, faster, more maneuverable and heavily armed and armored New Mandalorian fighters outclassed the old-style Confederate fighters in almost every single measurable quality. They dove in on the packed squadrons of enemy fighters and tore gaping holes in their formations. F-55s and F-35s fell across Wellington like a titanium hailstorm, setting small fires across the city.
The Confederates scattered like a block of ice being struck by a sledgehammer. This had only been a reconnaissance in-force, but they had never expected such efficient defenses. If they had they would have either sent in their new X-1s and A-1 fighters like they had at Mars or never have come here at all. In the end only a handful of proton torpedoes were launched at the city shield and those that did were almost immediately intercepted by the Pinpoint Barrier System.
It had been a test of New Mandalore's defenses and the Confederates had failed miserably, but they would be back and in greater numbers. As the surviving Confederates turned to retreat back to their Australian air bases, one of the Kom'rk was suddenly hit by a stream of green laser fire. The New Mandalorian fighter buckled from the impact before turning over and performing a long dive into Wellington Harbor. With no effort to bail out, Jade assumed the pilot had been dead at the stick when the fighter smacked into the water. TIE Interceptors, painted in black with odd red stripes on their solar arrays in no Imperial style Jade had ever heard of, raced into the gap between the retreating Confederates and the Mandalorian defenders. Their strange, new bombers flew in over the exposed suburbs of the city and started dropping energy bombs on the vulnerable civilian neighborhoods.
The TIE force was evenly split between fighters and bombers. As such the fifteen Interceptors couldn't prevent the squadrons of Kom'rks from cutting through their protective screen once they witnessed the bombers attacking their own defenseless homes. Seeing the attack as futile the protective fighters decided to cut and run, while shepherding their bombers ahead of them.
The last minute retreat came too late for one bomber who flew a little too close to the Kom'rks and away from his escorts. A trio of Mandalorian fighters got behind the slower bomber and in a flash the lead Kom'rk tore into the bomber's ion engines. Sparks and chunks of metal fell away from the craft before it started trailing a blackened contrail in its own wake. It turned towards the sea and its rapidly disappearing escorts, but it was a hopeless effort for the stricken TIE bomber. It quickly lost altitude but stayed relatively level before crashing into a row of houses in the Broadmeadows section of Wellington. A rising smoke column marked the crash site for anyone to see.
Bly snapped his fingers at Jade and pointed at the bomber while it was still falling from the sky. "That's your mission. Fetch."
"Aye, aye, sir." Jade saluted and ran for the door, nearly knocking over a waiter in the process.
She ran past Marshal Commander Salvo who did a double take at the bounty hunter's sudden departure. He looked at the falling bomber and then at Bly. "Brother, stang you. Keep your kriffing bounty hunters out of my constables' way."
Jade faintly heard the brief exchange between the two Marshals as she ran towards her waiting team. Right now alerts would be sent out to every police substation across Wellington. If those pilots survived they'd be a treasure trove of information, starting with who in the hell they were. The Empire would pay a fortune for information like that. Half that money would go to New Mandalore while the other half would go to the Clan who brokered the information transfer. There was no reason that clan shouldn't be Clan Bly. And no reason the Regulators shouldn't receive a big pay day.
Jade activated the comm channel to the rest of the Regulators. "Bitee, I'm on my way. I want the Golem's wheels up in one minute."
"You got it, boss." The Talpini's squeaky voice answered. The diminutive alien was one of the best bush pilots Jade had ever come across.
She made it to the landing pad with seconds to spare. The Beskar Golem's engines were screaming as Bitee started to lift off from the pad upon seeing Jade's approach. The craft was based off of the old Russian Hind helicopter and in the forward gunner bubble sat her second-in-command, Mason Singh, who lifted two fingers to his brow in an ad hoc salute. The Beskar Golem began to rise into the sky and as it did so, it slowly turned to the right exposing its left side to the American bounty hunter. The side cargo door was open and standing inside, waving encouragement to their boss were two more Regulators, the Kiwi Hargrave and the clone Barrage.
Jade sprinted for the Beskar Golem and leapt into the air. Hargrave caught her outstretched hand and, along with Barrage, hauled her aboard the modified airspeeder. Jade put a hand out and slapped a shoulder pad on both of them in thanks. "Bitee, head to the Broadmeadows. We're looking for a downed Impie bomber."
The Beskar Golem banked away from the stilted city and raced across the harbor towards the northern suburb. Jade leaned out the open cargo doors of the hybrid ship. She easily spotted the smoke pyre from the crash site marking their target's location several kilometers ahead.
She could feel the wind through the cracks in her armor. The adrenaline rush of entering combat crept through her veins like crackling electricity. This was what war was supposed to be like, not what they had back in the Beehive, where Marshals fought war from long distance in plush chairs while sipping drinks and laughing over old war stories. War was fought by warriors, not gamers and high-tech toys. Pre-war Earth had forgotten that. The Empire had reminded them. Battles would always be won by soldiers on the ground willing to spill each other's blood. And good intelligence was the way to make sure the other side spilled a lot more blood than yours.
For as her long dead father had taught her, knowing was half the battle.
A pair of Kom'rk came alongside to look over the Beskar Golem. The fighters waggled their wings back and forth in recognition. The closest pilot raised his fist in a sign of victory. No doubt those pilots were elated from their first victory, and with an enemy that outnumbered them two to one. But Jade knew the enemy had only probed New Mandalore with airplanes more suited for past wars than the latest New Mandalorian gear and with second tier pilots that probably hadn't rated high enough to join the main attack on the Empire. She would keep that to herself, and as she did so, she would be one of the first to buy those pilots a pint at the pub tonight.
"What's the job, boss." Lata, the team's sniper, asked.
"That bomber went down in a civilian neighborhood. Looks like it belonged to the strange, new allies that the Confederates picked up." Jade started to explain.
"The same fuckers who hit Nal Kuat?" Hargrave wondered.
"That's the going rumor. The Marshals want answers. Answers we can sell to the Empire. So this is a dry Op. No lethal weapons. Bly is going to pay top credit for live prisoners."
The team started stowing their weapons and switching over to a smaller arsenal of various non-lethal pacifiers. They had done this sort of job in the past, snatching several high-value targets out of the CEN over the past few years.
"We're here." Bitee announced.
Jade peered out the door. Sure enough civilian houses were spread about for kilometers in every direction. The streets were mainly empty with the population still standing ready at their battles stations. One block contained the remains of the faux-Imperial bomber, which had come to rest after demolishing four houses along one small street. Smoke and heat rose from the wreckage, slightly buffeting the Beskar Golem. From several directions Jade could hear the approaching sound of emergency vehicles. A block ahead of them, moving along a larger street, was a cruiser from the Wellington Police Force. Its constables were looking out their windows watching for suspicious individuals. Within minutes their mates would arrive and cordon off the block for Marshal Salvo. The Regulators needed to move fast if they wanted to get to the prize first.
"Over there!" Barrage shouted and pointed at two black figures moving on the opposite side of the wrecked block from the nearest constable cruiser.
"That's them." Jade recognized the bulbous shapes of Imperial flight helmets. The two figures looked a little rough for wear after their crash and one of them was visibly limping while the other one cradled his left arm against his chest. "Bitee, set us down at the end of the block."
"On it." The Beskar Golem's pilot moved away from the crashed bomber and settled over the nearest intersection from the two fugitives.
The bounties must have heard the approach of the Beskar Golem's engines and looked in her direction. Frantically the bombardier smashed in the driver side window of a parked black SUV and opened the door. The downed pilot drew his sidearm. He had been carrying a large canvas bag and set it down on the ground before withdrawing several items. Jade couldn't tell what he had pulled out of the bag, but her gut screamed grenades, what Imperials called thermal detonators.
As they landed, the police cruiser they had spotted from the air arrived and parked directly in front of them in the intersection between the Beskar Golem and the enemy fugitives.
Jade jumped to the ground just as the constables got out of their car with their weapons drawn. One of them looked to the bounty hunter, a sign of recognition on his face. "Stay out of our way, Regulators. This is Wellington PD's jurisdiction."
"Just lending a hand, constable." Jade promised, though cursing to herself. She needed to keep it loose and act fast if they were going to salvage this bounty. The rest of the Regulators exited the craft after her. She quickly looked them over to double check that they were carrying non-lethal munitions. It was bad enough the constables were carrying blasters. Singh took an extra minute to leave the Beskar Golem, probably because he was situated in the forward gunner's seat so Jade didn't have the time to check him over before Bitee lifted off again to bring the ship into an over-watch position.
The Regulators took cover behind some more parked cars as the first two constables got back inside their cruiser. Jade told the nearest one in the driver's seat. "We're behind you. Light them up with your spotlights whenever you're ready."
The cruiser started to creep forward. When it got within twenty meters of the SUV the bombardier was trying to steal, it stopped. There was a brief second of silence as the constables locked eyes with the two TIE crewmen. Then the pilot lifted his blaster pistol and started firing into the front windshield of the cruiser.
Both constables ducked down as plasma bolts shattered their windshield into hundreds of tiny pieces a slicing glass. The driver slammed into reverse, his tires screeching on the pavement. Jade could hear him screaming, as the cruiser raced back towards the Regulators. "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!"
The retreating cruiser reverse plowed into a fire hydrant on the corner next to Singh and Hargrave's positions just as another Wellington PD cruiser arrived around the corner Jade, Lata and Barrage had taken cover behind. The second cruiser immediately took fire from the pilot in its own windshield and engine compartment. The newly arrived constable screamed into his radio. "Shots blasted! Shots blasted! I need more units down here."
"You all right, man?" Jade yelled towards the nearest cruiser.
"Yeah, I'm all right. He hit my car, not me." The constable responded as he climbed out of his stalled vehicle and crouched behind his open driver side door. The three constables and the Regulators bobbed up and down from their places of concealment. They couldn't see what the bombardier was doing inside the SUV but the TIE pilot had taken cover in front of the large car and was blasting at them from over its hood.
"Drop your weapons, and come out . . ." A blaster bolt destroyed the side mirror next to the calling constable's head. "Jesus!"
The two constables that had backed into the fire hydrant opened fire with their own RSKF-44 heavy blaster pistols. Their bolts slammed into the back window of the SUV, shattering it. One of them raised himself to yell down the street. "Give it up! You've got nowhere else to go!"
"Ah!" He ducked back down as the driver side window he was crouched behind shattered from the impact of a blaster bolt. God damn, idiots, Jade thought of the constables. They were going to wind up killing both of the TIE crewmen if this light fight went on much longer. Already she could hear more sirens in the distance as police reinforcements poured into the area. Soon the crash site would be swarming with Salvo's men, leaving Clan Bly with nothing.
The constables were now firing with everything they had. The Regulators had joined in and were sending blue circled stun blasts towards the parked SUV. The pilot returned sporadic fire with the police but through lapses in his return fire Jade thought she could hear him arguing with the bombardier to get the car moving.
The newest constable yelled at his two comrades as he once more climbed behind the wheel of his cruiser. "Use my car for cover."
The two other officers ran from their stalled vehicle and took up firing positions behind the driving constable's cruiser as he slowly started moving forward again. They blasted dozens of bolts towards the SUV to keep the pilot pinned down as they approached.
Suddenly the bombardier opened up on them from the SUV's driver seat causing them to duck behind the moving cruiser. As they did so the pilot emerged from his own cover and heaved a round object down the street. It bounced along the asphalt before rolling underneath the bottom of the police cruiser. A second later it exploded, lifting the cruiser up several centimeters and shredding several garbage cans lined up along the side of the street. Debris from the garbage cans rained down across the officers and the smoking cruiser wreckage.
"God, fucking stang it!" The two officers at the rear of the cruiser dove for cover in the hedges of the nearest home as the cruiser driver crawled out from his destroyed vehicle. The Regulators blasted stun rounds down the street and drove the pilot back behind his cover.
"Sarge, I can't see. Where are you?" One of the constables stumbled away from the wreckage, holding his hand to his face and rubbing his eyes vigorously. Jade assumed the man had taken a clump of dust to his face and hadn't received any permanent damage but she didn't have any time to worry any more than that with the bounty about to slip away.
"Echuta, Joey get over here." One of the other constables ran to his blinded comrade and pulled him to cover.
Another grenade rolled down the street and came to a rest underneath the first cruiser smashed against the fire hydrant. When it exploded it blew out all of the cruiser's windows and ripped the hood from the vehicle. The police lights atop the cruiser burst, sending shattered plastic shards down on Singh and Hargrave, whose armor protected them from any serious damage.
"Dispatch! I need back up down here!" The one constable Jade figured was senior demanded into his radio. "Get us everyone. We could use a LAAT for overhead coverage as well."
"Roger, roger, Unit 131. All available units are moving to your position." A dispatcher responded from the other side of the constable's comm channel.
Two more cruisers screeched to a halt behind the Regulators. Their occupants rushed from their vehicles with their blasters drawn and took cover besides the bounty hunters. The four new officers added their blaster fire to suppressing the bolts coming from the SUV down the street.
"Shit. Jammed." The constable next to Jade bent down behind the cover of a nearby short brick wall and tried to fix his weapon. He looked at the Regulator's boss. "Who the fuck are these guys?"
"Confeds. They crashed here when their plane went down." Jade lied. She had no reason to provide the constables with information that would prevent them from snatching a potential prisoner as a source of information. This was how the clans worked. They worked beside each other but in the end it was Salvo versus Bly.
The two constables with the blind officer were the closest to the two TIE crewman. One of them was helping clear the eyes of his friend while the other reloaded. Bolts zipped by over their head as the arriving constables shredded the parked SUV. The reloading constable held up a tibanna clip and told the other, "Shit, this is my last one."
The TIE pilot stood up and hurled a grenade down the street. It didn't quite make it to the Regulators and constables positions before exploding, spreading more chaos to the scene. The faux-Imperial shouted, "Fierfek you!"
The explosion sent the three pinned constables scrambling as the shockwave from the blast knocked them off their feet. They regained their composure and grabbed the blind constable by the collar. One of them dragged the wounded man while the other kicked in the door to a house for them to take shelter in. Wild blaster bolts from the bombardier followed them inside and left carbon scoring all across the front of the house.
One of the constables by Singh shouted to the others. "I'm going for my machine gun."
Hargrave stood up and fired a spray of stun rounds into where he thought the bombardier's head might be. "You cocksucking, son of a Hutt."
As two more cruisers arrived, more constables took cover behind the wrecks of the first two. Jade spotted another cruiser on the far side of the block edging around the corner. Behind the approaching car was a trio of new constables with their blaster pistols pointed.
The TIE pilot saw the constables advancing behind him before they could open fire. He side-armed another grenade directly under the cruiser's driver side front wheel, where it detonated in a cloud of smoke and shrapnel. The newly burning cruiser blocked the far exit from the street and sent the constables down there scurrying for cover.
The constable by Singh returned with an assault rifle. Jade recognized it as a pre-war AR-15. The constable raised his gun to his shoulder and let her rip, punching holes all along the back of the SUV and blowing out its rear tires. The constable growled as he fired, "Welcome to Wellington, motherfuckers!"
The bombardier stepped out of the car and hurled another grenade down the far end of the street. "Eat poodoo, barve!"
Another police cruiser on the far end was destroyed. Jade was surprised as hell that no one had been killed in the wild light fight. The constables and TIE crewman shot as poorly as Stormtroopers were jokingly referred to blast. Not that she could say anything, as none of her Regulators had hit a target so far either.
Automatic gunfire and explosions from the grenades filled the street. A grenade landed next to the cruiser impaled on the fire hydrant sending its front end swinging around like a cricket bat into the constable with the AR-15 and swatting him into the side of another destroyed cruiser across the street. Barrage ran from cover and grabbed the fallen officer and carried him to safety before the TIE pilot could blast him.
A grenade landed on the other side of the wall Jade was crouched behind and sent a geyser of dirt and grass showering down on top of everyone behind her position. A lawn chair, tossed by the explosion bounced off of Lata just as he had lined up a shot on the TIE pilot and threw off his aim.
More officers arrived and Jade noted that they too were carrying heavier E-11s. The street became a blinding maelstrom as hundreds of bolts zipped up and down its length. The constables on the far end of the street accidently fired past the TIE crewmen and their bolts struck the positions on the Regulators' end. The constables did the same thing to their comrades on the far end. Somebody was going to get killed, Jade knew deep down it was only a matter of time.
"I'm going to flank them." Singh shouted from across the street. He crouched at the waist and ran behind the house on the corner ducking down the alley that ran parallel to the street.
"Wait, you idiot." Jade shouted into her comlink. Perhaps it wasn't such a bad idea. Singh was going down the opposite block from the downed TIE fighter and the houses and shrubbery concealed him from everyone on the street. Perhaps she should send Barrage and Hargrave after him while she and Lata kept the constables from rushing the crashed crew and killing them. Another fusillade from both TIE crewmen kept her end of the street pinned down much too long for her to send reinforcements after her second-in-command.
The constables kept the TIE pilots engaged for several minutes as they tried to inch forward from both ends of the street. Suddenly she saw movement near the driveway next to the SUV. It was Singh. He had gotten within five meters of the two enemy crewmen without them noticing his approach. Baddass Mando, right there, she thought.
Singh stood between two parked cars in the driveway. The enemy hadn't noticed him but Jade could see everything he was doing. Singh reached behind him and pulled out a weapon he had tucked in the back of his belt. He withdrew it and took careful aim. Jade flipped down her macrobinoculars for a closer look. Sure enough she identified that Singh was holding his beloved Glock 37 pistol.
"That schutta, I told him to bring stun weapons." Jade cursed to Lata and Barrage, who both peered over the wall to see what Singh was doing.
Singh lined up a shot and fired. His bullet glanced off the hood of the SUV only centimeters from the TIE pilot's head. The near miss did focus the TIE pilot's attention however and he spun around to face the Regulator only mere meters away from him. He blasted wildly at Singh before ducking down again. One of the bolts caught Singh in the chest knocking him to the ground. With his pistol still in his hand he fired underneath the SUV and hit the pilot in the ankle dropping him to the ground. "Echuta, my leg!"
Singh had a clear line of sight on the fallen pilot and fired the rest of his clip at the fallen man. Jade could see heavy impacts on the black coveralls and blood spurt from the prone pilot's chest.
The bombardier panicked seeing his comrade go down in front of the SUV. The keys must have already been in the car, or they taught TIE pilots to hot wire Earth cars wherever he was from, because the car's engine suddenly roared to life.
The Bombardier gunned it, sending the car lurching forward as he attempted to familiarize himself with the controls. It didn't help his fallen comrade, as the SUV ran over the pilot. The front driver wheel passed over the pilot's helmet with a sickening crunch.
The bombardier spun the SUV around with a screech of rubber tires on hard asphalt. The far end of the street had been thoroughly blocked with destroyed constable cruisers so the only exit was the gap between the first two destroyed cruisers to have arrived.
The bombardier floored it. The SUV charged forward, sideswiping both cruisers as it passed between them. The Regulators, as well as a dozen constables, blasted wildly at the vehicle as it sped past. The TIE crewman ducked down behind the wheel and narrowly missed being struck by a dozen bolts as he went by.
Two officers on both sides of the road suddenly dropped to the ground. They had both been independently hit by stray rounds. Their comrades rushed to their aid as the SUV hurled itself through the mass of parked cruisers that should have been arranged to prevent his escape. The constables at the rear didn't know of the approach of the SUV until it was racing past them and dropping the last of his grenades out of the window.
While the constables recovered from the speeding SUV that burst through their ranks, the only ones in pursuit of the fleeing SUV were four Regulators on foot. Jade had them running after the target even while he was charging through the constables' lines. Everyone else was helping their own wounded or checking themselves for injuries. Half of the constables were simply shocked to realize they were still alive.
The pursuit on foot only lasted two blocks. The SUV couldn't go very fast because of its flat tires and the bombardier had not gained the skills just yet to drive a car. One of the abilities he sorely lacked was understanding the check engine light on his dashboard or he would have understood that his power steering was shot to hell. He had spent the last of the precious fluid fishtailing the SUV to turn it in the opposing direction it had been parked in and as the road veered slightly to the left he drove the SUV into a large streetlight pole.
He got out in time to see a large black and silver Mandalorian female charging down on him. He raised his blaster pistol to shoot her, but it was too late. Another Mandalorian behind the first had raised a sniper rifle and put a neatly aimed stun blast directly into his face.
"Bitee, get us out of here now." Jade screamed into her comlink as she caught the falling bombardier before he hit the ground.
"Roger that, boss." The scream of the Beskar Golem was directly overhead in the blink of an eye as the gunship descended next to the crashed SUV.
"Jade, we got to go." Hargrave pointed at the dozen constables running up the street towards them. They were a half block away and closing fast.
"Stop right there. That man is our prisoner." The nearest constable shouted while waving his blaster pistol at them.
Lata jumped up into the Beskar Golem and turned around to help Jade and Barrage lift the unconscious bombardier into the gunship. Jade was the last to climb aboard as the Beskar Golem climbed into the sky. As it did so, she waved to the onrushing constables only a few meters away, "Sorry, boys. There's always next time."
The Beskar Golem left the area in a hurry before police LAATs could arrive on the scene. As Lata and Barrage bound the prisoner and propped him up into the one seat in the compartment, Hargrave inquired about their fallen man. "What about Singh?"
"Marshal Bly will bail him out. He didn't defy guild rules so they can't hold him." Jade shouted to her men. They nodded their acceptance. Jade wondered what she would do when Singh returned in a few days. Had he really defied her orders about only being armed with stun weapons or had it been an honest mistake in the heat of a chaotic firefight?
"Bitee, take us to the safe house in Upper Hutt." Jade called forward to the Tapani pilot.
"Roger, roger, boss lady." Bitee sped the Beskar Golem away from the crash site at nearly rooftop level as they fled Wellington's city limits.
Jade knelt down before the tied up Bombardier. Lata removed the man's flight helmet. Underneath he looked like an average white guy, though Jade sensed that their prisoner was no Earthling from the CEN. This man was as alien as Bitee or Marshal Bly. She placed one hand on his jawline to steady him and then slapped him awake. She ordered Hargrave, "Give him a dose of Skirtopanol. There's a syringe of it in my bag over there."
Hargrave chuckled as he rummaged through the indicated bag. "A proper lady should never leave home without some truth serum."
The Kiwi prepped the syringe by knocking the last few air bubbles out of the needle. Then he stood behind the groggy TIE crewman and injected the drug into the man's right bicep.
Jade waited nearly a minute for the drug's effects to take hold before she started in on him. "What is your name?"
"Fierfek you, scum." He responded with an awakening glare. Jade jabbed him in the eye with the knuckle of her right index finger. The man howled in pain. "Lieutenant Jad Galek. 45th Bombardment Group."
"Where are you from?" Jade continued.
The man was obviously trying to fight the Skirtopanol. He was sweating and shaking profusely but only had so much fight left in him. "You barve."
Jade punched him in his unprotected groin which made him scream even more. Tears flowed down his face. "I'm from Bespin. I was assigned aboard the Star Destroyer Calamity to assist those pathetic Confederates in crushing you."
"You're not part of the Confederacy of Earth Nations then?"
"Kriff no. They couldn't wipe their own shebs without our help." Lieutenant Galek responded. The drugs looked to finally have him firmly in their grip.
"Then who are you people?" Jade demanded.
"We're the First Order." Galek gritted his teeth as if he were in physical pain.
The bounty hunters all looked at each other. None of them, particularly Barrage, who originally came from the Empire, had ever heard of the term. Jade leaned her face close to the captive TIE bombardier. "Now, my friend, you're going to tell me everything. Starting with what in the hell is the First Order?"
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Up Next- Welcome to the Empire