Someone knocked softly on the chamber door. Lorien nodded to The Seventh to open it up. A messanger stepped through the threshold. "Pardons, First," he said bowing, then nodding to the other Mansurien leaders and to the New Republic delegation, "and The Seven, and the delegates of the New Republic. We are receiving a coded transmission from the Tantive V."

Lorien glanced at Leia, who nodded. "Very well. We will view it in here." Lorien closed the door behind the man. "Senator?"

"I have the decoding sequence." She signaled to the console in the center of the chamber's large table. "Young Tuari, please input the sequence. And pay close attention to the message."

Tuari did as he was told. A young Rebel soldier appeared on the screen. Tuari recognized him as the comm officer from the ship. "My lady, Senator Leia, there has been a security breech in sector five."

She nodded. "Exactly where?"

Tuari had the feeling that she already knew.

"In young Padowan Tuari's room. Nothing was taken. Nothing was damaged."

Leia nodded again. "Very well. Proceed as normal. I know what the intruder was after."

"Yes, my Lady."

The comm officer did not intend for his thoughts to be known: Jedi... Think they know everything... Wish they'd tell the rest of us what's going on...

But the thoughts were so strong that Leia couldn't help but know them. "Oh, and please don't take offense that I won't tell you what's going on. It's classified information."

"... Um... Of course, my Lady. Think nothing of it." How did she know!

Leia supressed a smile. She had wanted to say something to tick him off... that would have been funny... but not wise... She sighed. "Very well. Leia out."

"Tantive V out."

Tuari hesitantly met Leia's eyes. "He was after me, wasn't he, Lady Leia?"

"Yes, Tuari. The intruder was Darth Roarke. He was looking to recruit you to the Dark Side of the Force. Now do you understand why I brought you?"

"Yes, my Lady."

The Mansuriens look confused. Lorien was the first to ask, "How did you know?"

Half-asleep, Han answered, "It's a jedi thing. Sometimes they can sense or catch glimpses of the future."

"But it is more prudent to keep your mind on the present," replied Leia. "Now, back to battle tactics. I was thinking of placing our own troops... here... here... here... here... here... and here."

Lorien nodded. "Very well. The first group will go with Fire Squadron, the second group will go with Earth Squadron, the third group will go with Water Squadron, the fourth group will go with Lightning Squadron, the fifth with Illusion Squadron, and the sixth with Air Squadron."

"Good. Each of our groups will consist of thirty people. Is that too much?"

"That is perfect. Each of our own Sqadrons have about sixty members."

Leia nodded curtly. "Then I will immediately have the troops sent over little by little to bypass the Imperial security so they can meet the people they will be working with."

"You may take our two stealth shuttle crafts. They cannot be seen by Imperial scanners, though, unfortunately, we only have two built. They are very difficult to engineer."

"That would be much appreciated. Though we will continue to use our own shuttles as well to get this over with as quickly as possible... the transportation, I mean."

"Of course, Lady." Lorien stood and bowed. "Sixth and Seventh will see to it that you are well taken care of."

Everyone reported what they had seen, which only confirmed what Luke has sensed. Of course there was the one medium-class Rebel Prison Transport--and a rather old one at that. In the left chamber were a lot of supplies on three of the levels, and extra laserpistols and other such weapons on the fourth. In the middle chamber that Luke attacked, there were fighters and other small crafts: twenty TIE fighters, ten TIE crawlers, ten TIE maulers, fourty-two various types of landspeeders, two TIE bombers, and three TIE interceptors. All of them were broken. But their weapons still worked, fortunate for the jedi. In the right chamber were big crafts and other mechanical stuff and repair items. There were ten crafts: two T-16 skyhoppers, two T2-B repulsor tanks, two bounty-hunter pursuit vessels, one Tartan-class partrol cruiser, and three Imperial landing crafts. Those were broken too. In fact, most everything in the entire lower-complex couldn't fully run on it's own, and with no hope of ever making them opperational. But Luke didn't need them to work. He needed their parts. "Good job, now, I brought my old X-wing over and landed it in the grounds. I want everyone to study how it's made, and memorize it as best a humanly--" He cut off his sentence, looking at the aliens in the room. "--... as best as possible."

Didier fell in love the moment he saw Captain Paytah's first subofficer. Nuri... such a beautiful name... How I wish I could be the one she wanted... I wonder if she's seeing anyone... I wonder if she would join the Rebel Alliance...

Yukio fell in love the moment he saw Captain Paytah's first subofficer...

"I am Gaia, Captain of Earth Squadron. This is First Undercaptain Damek and Second Undercaptain Zola." Gaia explained all of their powers, the roles of the other members, and what the New Republic soldiers were expected to do. "Do you understand."

Some nodded, some saluted, and a few murmured, "Yes, mam." They weren't used to fighting with women. Women didn't fight in the New Republic / Rebel Alliance. Except for Lady Leia. Leia always fought...

Dmitri stared at Zola. She must be new... She's shuffling her feet and keeping her hands behind her back so that no one can see that she's twiddling with them...

Raif and Tuan whispered back and forth, completely bored out of their minds, even though they were in the presence of a great and powerful--if odd-looking--race.

"Is there a problem, soldiers?" Gaia practically screamed.

The both stood up straight and yelled, "No, mam!"

"Good. Now, on with your assignments..."

Raziya adjusted his blasters. "I agree, Captain Namazzi." The Water Squadron Captain and one of the New Republic soldiers were off in a corner talking after Namazzi's brief description of their duties. "A soldier should be ready to die for his--or her--country, planet, alliance, whatever. If they can be protected by soldiers, then they can become a soldier and protect others."

"Exactly. It's a two-way street. Now if only our leaders could see it that way..."

Elek and the three other soldiers that were with him by Imogene were fascinated by the Captain of Illusion Squadron. The concept of it all was incredible, especially the way she explained it. The three other soldiers were brothers and known as the Adel brothers of Alderaan, and being from Alderaan, they were quite loyal to Princess Leia. They had joined the Alliance forces just before the tragic destruction of their planet by the Death Star. From youngest to oldest, they were Sacha, Sandor, and Socorro, ages twenty-one, twenty-five, and twenty-nine. However, as First Undercaptain Pratima prompty noted... they looked exactly the same age, as if they were triplets. And while Sacha loved the comment--and Sandor couldn't care less--Socorro decided that he definately did not care for the First Undercaptain.

Captain of Air Squadron Bavol and Ban of the New Republic fully dissagreed on the topic on conscription. Bavol liked the idea. Ban hated it. Bavol and Ban didn't want to be in the same group, but it couldn't be helped. Bavol and Ban became enemies. That's all there is to say about that.

Amarus, Luthando, and Prem hovered around Devante. They adored him. He was kind, generous, neutral in arguments so that he could settle it, and he always devised the most suitable and accomodating solution. He was a great guy. But Devante seemed to have his eye on a young, new soldier in his ranks. Jorn didn't like that. In fact, he didn't like Devante at all. He pulled Luthando asside. "I don't trust him."

"That's only because you like that young soldier woman too, you idiot. Besides, you don't trust anybody."

"That's not true."

"Name three people that you would trust your life with."

"Well... you because I've known you forever. Prem is trustworthy too... somewhat... And... and... I would trust Jedi Master Luke Skywalker."

"First off, you barely trust me, and not with your life. Secondly, you practically hate Prem. And finally, you trust the Jedi because they have the Force--everyone trusts them. Besides, it's hard to trust a dead man."

"He's not dead. Senator Leia believes he's still alive, and so does General Han. That's enough for me."

Luthando rolled his eyes. "Whatever. I'm going back to Devante. He's a really good guy. You should get to know him."

"I don't trust him."

Luthand shrugged and left Jorn where he was to go back and talk to Captain Devante. "You're loss," he called over his shoulder.

Everyone gathered around Luke. "Now does everyone know who's doing what?" They all confirmed that they did. "Those that are gathering scrap-metal, report to Hateya. Those that are gathering small, hand-held weapons like blasters and such, report to Eron. Those that are gathering specialized equipment, report to Alden. Those that are gathering craft weapons, report to Ezhno. Perdita, you and your people work on food supplies. Those in charge of construction, report to me. Hateya, Eron, Alden, Ezhno, and Perdita, report to me every half-hour. Now spread out and let's get this moving.

Note: I know that the past few chapters involving the Mansuriens may bore some of you, but trust me, it's neccessary. So yeah... get over it, those of you PMing me and telling me to make it more action-packed. Trust me, there is a LOT of that to come.

Thank you,

The Author

P.S.- the characters Perdita and Pratima are NOT RELATED IN ANY WAY! their names just so happen to sound similar. Perdita is a human jedi. Pratima is the first undercaptain of illusion in the Mansurien army. End of story. Stop PMing me about that as well. Thanks.