Knight in Shining Armor
Chapter 4

Jace tracked Jalril and his escort all the way to the Lucky Despot, a luxury hotel considered by some to be one of the finest in all of Mos Eisley. Of course if you asked Lady Valarian, the Whiphid owner of the Lucky Despot, it was the finest luxury hotel on all of Tatooine. Using a holoshroud of Lady Valarian, Jace was able to walk up to the computer behind the front desk and find out what room Gallaex was in.

The rebel agent carefully made his way up to the empty suite next to Gallaex's. Climbing out onto the ledge outside the window, Jace slowly walked over to Gallaex's balcony. He then kicked open the curtained door and walked in on a surprised Gallaex and Jalril. Without even waiting for it to strike, Jace turned and shot Gallaex's sand panther with a tranquilizer before it could attack, knocking it out cold.

"The Knight!" Gallaex exclaimed, horrified. Jalril was too scared to even speak.

"Polto Jalril and Admiral Sol Gallaex, here sealing the deal on Jalril's most recent treasonous act," Jace growled, the armor's vocoder making his voice sound deeper, menacing, more authoritative. He then replayed their conversation from the night before for them. "Tatooine is not Bespin Jalril. Nor is providing the admiral here with the information you've supplied for him helping the Alliance. You both have no choice but to come with me."

Gallaex finally managed to over come his fear and lunged for the door to the main room of his suite. Jace raised his arm, targeting the admiral, and shot him with a stun beam. He then pointed it at Jalril and did the same to him. Moving quickly, he tied the two up, gagged them, and threw them in the sand panther's carry cage. The evidence of Jalril's treason went in with them. He then took the sand panther out onto the suite's balcony, chaining it to the railing. Remodulating the armor's vocorder, he hit the balcony's comm unit.

"Lieutenant Stries here admiral. What were those loud thumping noises?"

"My panther was not pleased with the idea of being put back into his cage so soon," Jace said, sounding exactly like Gallaex. "Lieutenant, have his cage delivered to Docking Bay Forty."

"Shouldn't I have Thanatos taken to your shuttle at Docking Bay Ninety?"

"No, I will be returning to the fleet when we leave Tatooine. I have made arrangements with a Captain Douw to return Thanatos to my home on Coruscant."

"Yes sir."

"And lieutenant, I am entertaining our guest out on the balcony. I do not want to be disturbed. But I want you to take Thanatos to Captain Douw immediately."

"As ordered admiral."

Jace reached over and patted the sand panther. "Two hours from now you'll wake up. Be glad I left you in the shade."

With that, Jace jumped over the balcony's railing. The armor's wings opened up, it's jet engines kicked in, stopping Jace's fall to the ground. Soon Jace was flying over Mos Eisley, rocketing towards Docking Bay Forty.

"Ah, Commander Douw, welcome to Tynna base," Mon Mothma said as Jace entered the base's headquarters building.

"It's good to be here," Jace replied. "Tatooine was a bit too dry for my tastes. Or maybe it was the fact that it was crawling with stormtroopers when I left that brought on my current dislike of the planet."

"Yes, the Alliance's High Command was shocked to learn that Polto Jalril had betrayed us as he has. So many of us have trusted him with our lives. But then, he has tended to be with us when we entrusted our lives to him. How would he explain why the Imperials set him free, or how he managed to so easily escape capture and the rest of us were still prisoners of the Empire?"

"Indeed, that would be hard for him to do. But then, with the evidence I gathered against him, I doubt he could come up with an explanation for his actions now."

"True. And Admiral Gallaex is very unpleased with his situation. But that is now none of your concern. I trust your meeting on Tatooine went as planned, aside from having to unexpectedly deal with Gallaex and Jalril."

"Better actually. One of my contacts was able to get his hands on TX-56s for me. I'd been after the 55s, figuring they would be easier to get a hold of than the newer 56s."

"And your other contact?"

"She had the proton torpedoes we badly need. Their currently being unloaded."

"A successful mission then. We will be needing as many proton torpedoes as we can possibly get our hands on."

"Well, Sasla promised to contact me when she could get her hands on another shipment of torpedoes for us."

"I'm glad to hear that. But now I have a mission for you." Mon Mothma said, hoping to get his full attention. Once she had it, she handed him a holo disk. "This is General Rasheil, one of our top Special Forces commanders. Three months ago he was captured while on a mission to Bestine. We know he was held on Bestine until last month. But where he is in the Empire, we do not know. Your mission will be to find him and bring him back if at all possible."

"Consider it done," Jace said as he got up to leave.

"Commander, do be careful. We can't afford to loose any of our people, but you are one of those who are virtually impossible to replace."

"Don't worry. I'll be back before you can even start to worry."

"Bestine's a water planet," Krysta said as Jace punched the coordinates into the Wind Star's navcomputer. "There's practically no landmasses on the planet. And the Empire controls it. Why would we even want to go there?"

"Because we need to get all the information on the whereabouts of General Rasheil as we can. And since he was held on Bestine for two months, it stands to reason that there may still be some trace of where he may be now."

"Yeah, but Bestine?"

"Krysta, we'll be landing at Gasha settlement, one of Bestine's floating settlements. If you're so worried about the possibility of drowning or getting wet, I suggest you stay on board the 'Wind Star'."

"OK, ok, I'll stop complaining. The real question is how do you plan on infiltrating the Imp's base?"

"I figured I'd use that aqua-armor you've been developing."

"The weapon's systems on that suit aren't ready yet. If you were to run into any Imp troops, there would be no way you could defend yourself."

"I have the sonic rifle. And you'll have time while we're en route to see what you can do with the weapon's systems on it."

"And if their still not ready by the time we arrive?"

"I'll have to chance it. But I can't use the sky-armor like I did on Tatooine. If the Imperials see me coming on Bestine, they'll launch some TIEs. And there's no way I could deal with TIE fighters."

"Yeah, no kidding."

"Freighter Wind Star, you are clear to land on platform five," the dull voice of the flight controller said.

"Acknowledged tower," Jace replied.

"Well isn't he full of life," Windy sarcastically said as Jace shut down the comm.

"Stow it Windy," Jace ordered. "As long as we're on Bestine, you do not exist. We don't want the Imps discovering you."

"Got it," Windy whispered. "From now until we lift off, consider me gone."

Jace turned to Krysta. "How long do you think it will take for us to get unloaded, reloaded, and refueled."

"Two hours tops."

"Not much time for me to infiltrate the Imp base."

"According to the survey I made as we were landing, you'll have maybe ten minutes once you're in the base to find what you need and get back in time for us to lift off."

"Great, so really I'll have no time at all." Jace got out of his seat and headed for the door to the cockpit. "Well, suppose I better go have a chat with the customs official."

"And there goes your ten minutes," Krysta muttered.

"I heard that!"

"Well, your manifest fits what's here," the customs official said. "I'll get a load lifter out here to unload your cargo. The droid will then load you up."

"Thanks, much appreciated," Jace replied. "How long till I can lift again?"

"Well, it's gonna be four hours at the very least." Noticing Jace's questioning look, the man went on. "Normally it would take about two hours, but there's a monster storm coming up. After living here as long as I have, I know storms like this one tend to last at least four hours, if not more. All air travel is grounded."

"Well, I could use a bit of rest," Jace said, delighted at his sudden luck.

Waving to the customs official as he left, Jace made his way up the Wind Star's ramp. He quickly headed towards the ship's lounge, smiling from ear to ear. Krysta stared at him, wondering if he had lost his mind.

"Jace, are you all right?" she asked

"A minimum of four hours!" he exclaimed as he grabbed her and twirled her round and round.

"What?" Krysta managed to get away from him, now positive he had snapped.

"There's a big storm coming. All air traffic is grounded for the next four hours."

This time it was Krysta's turn to smile. "Well we best not waste it then. Let's get you armored up."

The aqua-armor was a deep bluish-green, designed to match the color of the ocean depths. It looked like something a samurai might wear rather than the armor found through out most of the galaxy. Like all the Knight armors, the helmet featured a pair of swept back horns and a face that appeared to be in a perpetual glare. Jace readily donned the armor as Krysta explained what it did.

"The helmet has a gill feature that activates as soon as your waist deep, closing off the air vents," she told him. She then tapped the suits backpack. "High pressure water jets capable of propelling you at speeds of up to twenty knots. Don't worry about the pressure such speeds could cause you, the armor's suppression unit will absorb it instead of your body.

"The right arm carry's a built in blaster and pneumatic micro harpoon launcher while the left has a stun gun and dart launcher. There are torpedo launchers on your shoulders, and the fold out wings at your hips posses aqua blasters. There's also fold out dive planes located on your shoulders and legs, and a pair of fold out rudders located above the water jets."

"How are the weapons systems?" Jace asked.

"Don't open the blaster or stun gun under water, that will short out the whole system. As for the rest of the weapon's I'm not sure. I didn't have the time I needed to test them like I'd prefer. You will have your choice of darts, as usual. So that should be helpful. Also, these aqua blaster are something I came up with and I'm not sure just how well they'll work. I'll probably replace them with a pair of sonic cannons. Oh, and you have your choice between explosive and grappling harpoons."

"But aside from the weapons systems, the aqua-armor is ready to go."

"Basically. There are still tests I'd like to have performed on it before you took it out. But it's not like you'll die from wearing it. And if the systems fail, there is an air tank with two hours of oxygen in it. Plus the armor's pack carries a pair of swim fins in case the water jets go down."

"Then I'm ready to go," Jace said, grabbing the sonic rifle and exiting through the 'Wind Star's' secret entrance.

Hugging closely to the ship's hull, Jace made his way to the edge of the landing pad. When there was no more hull to hug, he made a mad dash over the rest of the thirty meters to the edge of the landing pad, glad the storm had hit and was helping to cover his appearance. Reaching the edge, Jace jumped in feet first, remembering what Krysta had said about the aqua-armor's gill system activating once he was waist deep. Once fully submerged, he activated the map Krysta had downloaded into the armor's memory. It had been the same map she had made and had used previously to decide how much time he would have for this mission once they had set down.

After having dodged a couple of Imperial patrols, Jace arrived to find the base's security relatively lax. That was probably a good thing since any entanglements with Imperial troops would cost him valuable time. He quickly began his search for any room that might give him access to the base. Finding one, he mentally crossed his fingers, hoping it would not only give him the access he required but also contained the location of General Rasheil.

"Ralltiir," he said, finding what he was after. "Looks like I'm going home."

"You there, what do you think you're doing here?"

Jace turned around to see a pair of stormtroopers standing behind him, a trio of additional troopers coming up behind them. They recognized the face of the armor as soon as they saw it and brought their weapons up. Unfortunately for them, Jace was a much faster draw. He leveled his blaster arm at the nearest trooper and let loose with an explosive harpoon. The nearest troopers were enveloped in the blast, already gone before either could react. Using the blast cloud to hid his movements, he dropped to the floor, blaster bolts screaming past his head. Readjusting his aim, he took out the nearest trooper with three quick blaster shots. Another explosive harpoon aimed at the hallway ceiling ensured that the last two stormtroopers would not be getting to him for several minutes.

But it was too late to keep the base from being alerted to his presence. Grabbing the sonic rifle from his shoulder, Jace aimed it at the floor and fired a prolonged blast of sound. Set at it's full power, a sonic rifle had a blast comparable to that of a blaster. But the fact that it was high intensity sound made it more likely to blast through solid objects quicker than a blaster.

Once he had a hole big enough to fit through, Jace looked down. The floor below had to be about twenty feet down, too far for him to jump and hope to survive uninjured. But it was also one of the base's submersible bays. Holding the rifle in his left hand, he took aim and fired a third explosive harpoon.

Mag-con fields were standard usage not just on space going vessels capable of launching smaller ships and shuttles, but they were also used to keep sea water out of floating naval bases like the one on Bestine. These were unfortunately the only method on such naval bases to keep water out of the submersible bays. The explosion created by Jace's harpoon negated the effects mag-con field. Water rushed in to the submersible bay, enlarging the hole and shorting out unprotected electronic systems, like the mag-con controls. With two holes to flow through, the water quickly filled the submersible bay. Once it was half full, Jace jumped in.

If his quick escape seemed too easy, then the trip back to the Wind Star made up for it. Imperial seatroopers had already been dispersed to deal with him. Dressed in the standard white armor and black body glove so common to all branches of the stormtrooper corps, seatroopers looked more like scout troopers than they did any other stormtroopers. They wore the binder style helmet of the scout troopers. But unlike the scout troopers helmet, their helmet did not feature the air filter mouth. Instead, an oxygen mask was fitted over the mouth and nose. On their backs they carried a special backpack unit made up of an air filter for breathing, a couple of oxygen tanks for under water breathing, and a propulsion unit capable of reaching speeds of eight knots. Their gauntlets featured a fin with a built in vibro-blade and webbing between the fingers. Their boots carried swinging fins that could be locked in an up position when out of the water or a down position for use in the water. Their weapon of choice was the sonic rifle, though some chose to use a spear gun.

Jace activated his aqua blasters and took aim at one of the seatroopers. Getting a lock, he fired. But the only thing that happened was a sudden whine and the aqua blasters exploding just like a balloon being popping. He knew instantly that the blasters were of no use.

Finding that his weapon's systems still worked, he fired a dart at the nearest seatrooper. A simple anti-personnel dart, the tip packed enough explosive to punch through any stormtrooper armor, allowing the poisoned shaft a chance at the flesh beneath.

Once clear of seatroopers, Jace rocketed off toward to the Wind Star. Twice he was forced to use the suits torpedo launchers to deal with Imperial submersibles. But once back to the ship, he was able to sneak back aboard undetected. The whole mission had taken three and a half hours. An hour later, the 'Wind Star' was lifting off, bound for Fondor to deliver her cargo. From there, they would travel to Ralltiir.