Kren was hunched over the speederbike, coaxing as much velocity as he could from it, and while the noise dampers on the small vehicle rendered it almost completely silent, they drew a lot of power in exchange. This was going to be a one-way ride – if he survived, it was going to be a long walk back to the ship.
He was dress head to foot in matte-black, light absorbing armour, his eyes hidden behind his helmet's IR/NV visor. Impossible missions like this was what Kren Draven lived for - as a member of the rebellion's infiltrator elite Team Six, he specialized in 'guerrilla warfare', the Alliance term for what the Empire called 'Terrorist Activities'. Kren did not fancy himself a terrorist – he had never once killed a civilian, or someone who hadn't greatly deserved to die. He had never razed entire villages, shot unarmed civilians or unleashed a plague that had brought a species to the brink of extinction. In his mind, Kren was a warrior, not a murdered.
The terrain whipped by as he dodged trees and rock outcroppings, his visor making the blackness around him clear as day. The web gear around his shoulders and waist was heavy, but nothing he wasn't used to. Containing explosives, slice wire, extra power mags and a spare blaster in a shoulder holster - a low-tech arsenal, but brutally efficient in the hands of someone trained to use it properly. Pragmatically, he had forgone the bulky med kit he would have carried on a regular, sanctioned mission. If he were wounded seriously enough to need a med kit, he would be too hurt to get back to the ship, and he'd be screwed anyway. Kren knew he was expendable. He knew it and accepted it. His only job was to keep the garrison busy enough to give Barryk and Rehn time to escape… or to give Barryk time to destroy her if she was 'too far gone' to save, as Gade had put it. The thought made him shudder.
The weight of the huge 14inch combat vibro strapped to his right leg was reassuring as was that of the blaster that was strapped cross-draw on his left hip. Luckily, Cey'lon was backwater enough that codes were not as frequently changed as they were nearer the core and the com traffic came over his helmet's receivers was easily cracked courtesy of the slices he's hacked from the SpecForce data base before he'd left. So far, it was just typical trooper chitchat and banter that he only partially paid attention to. Cracking the Alliance's computers was an offence punishable by court-martial, at the very least when he returned, not that he actually expected to survive this. He shot a glance at the GSP monitor on the speeder's control panel and decelerated. It had only taken twenty minutes to get from the ship to the edge of the treeline.
He stopped the speeder and dismounted, taking off his pack and pulling a length of camouflage netting from it, tossing it over the speeder bike. He stood on the verge of the forest, looking towards the lights of the garrison and drew a deep breath, his nose to the wind. He stood for a long moment, concealed by the shadows cast by the thick canopy above him, almost becoming one with the scenery. He was in his element, his 'Zone'. Draven pushed his worry for Barryk and Rehn from his mind, leaving only his intense determination not to fail. His adrenalin began to flow, making his senses acute and he wondered what the Force felt like. Barryk had once told him it was like plugging your senses into the power generator of a Star Destroyer. Kren had not been able to figure out if that was a good thing, or a bad thing. His concentration during a mission was intense, and he ignored all other stimuli that were not potentially lethal. To be distracted was to lose your edge. To lose the edge is to lose your life he thought as he stepped out of the forest, his toes digging into the hard earth and he began his stealth run on the garrison. Kren had no intentions of dying tonight, even if the odds were nowhere near favouring him.
**************
Barryk crouched in the shoulder high barq grass and could see the lights of the Lakeeta fortress a half kilometre distant. It had stood for over a thousand years, being remodelled and added to with every new Warlord who came to power. The city around the fortress, unlike the other clan cities, had been untouched by the garrison, as though waiting for its people to return. All other cities on the planet, especially the Tay'axia clan's capital, had been was used by the garrison for urban combat training and had suffered as a result.
Gade move forward cautiously, his senses straining. He could not risk using the Force, lest Drakahn sense him. As he place a foot to the ground, something brittle splintered under his hoof and he froze. The grass crickets stopped chirping for only a moment, and then continued. Gade closed his eyes in relief when the night sounds continued, and looked down, lifting his foot. His grey eyes turned terribly sad in realization and he knelt, covering the small, crushed skull with a handful of dirt. It was not the first skeletal remains of his people he had found since arriving, the bleached bones marking the resting place of those who had not been buried before his species had been forced to flee the planet. Until this point all the remains had been those of adults, but the fragile skull that had so readily disintegrated beneath his toes had been that of a young foal, less than a year old.
He could still feel the pain, fear and hate of the senseless deaths had cause through the Force -millions of angry, restless spirits whose bodies had died terrible, agonizing deaths. Barryk had lost an older brother and most of his friends to the hemorrhagic plague, a disease that had slowly built up in the system until without warning, it caused the victim bleed to death internally by rupturing blood vessels in the lungs and brain. There had been no cure and death was terrifying – victims beginning to convulse uncontrollably and bleed from the mouth, nostrils, ears and eyes. Only the traitorous Lakeeta, who had secretly collaborated with the Empire had not suffered the horrendous casualties from the virus Vader had unleashed on the planet.
Barryk shook his head and snorted softly, trying to clear his mind. The memories flooded back easily, as recollections of pain and loss often do. Barryk squeeze his eyes shut and desperately search for his center. Despite his meditation and training during the trip, he felt like an apprentice again. Gade took a deep breath - if he did not concentrate on what lay before him, he would die, Kren would die and Rehn would be lost. He closed his eyes and let go of his emotions.
Barryk pulled the hood of his robes back, freeing his peripheral vision as he moved on. He had forsaken the Order shortly after tampering with Rehn's memory, the terrible guilt of what he'd done weighing heavily on his conscience. Barryk quickened his pace, stalking like a ghost through the grass, his thoughts on only one goal. He would make thing right between him and his sister, and though he had no idea where to start, getting her away from Drakahn and the Empire he served was a good start.