Hey, everybody. Back with another chapter.
Also, I'm going to give a quick list of the planets currently occupied by the Terran Alliance, in case you've lost track: Naboo, Teth, Kashyyyk, Christophsis, Scarif, Saleucami, Kamino, Ryloth, Malastare, and Onderon.
Let's get to it.
DJC1111: I'll try and compile a list soon.
8Ball3: I have heard of that battle, and I may do something like that.
TheCoolest7248: Not yet sure whether or not I'll have the Alliance try to use nukes at Endor, or about the Freedom.
AnimeGoji91: Don't worry, I'll show everything that happens in Jabba's palace.
Chapter 57- Operation Hermes
(December 29, 2016)
In the passenger bay of a stealth shuttle, Lieutenant Colonel Lawrence studies a series of photographs obtained from an SR-71D run, and rough schematics based on information provided by Imperial defectors. That information is plentiful, as there's been even more Imperial defectors since the invasion of Onderon.
Lawrence feels a bit proud. This is his first time commanding a mission for the Zulu Force.
His mission today is simple. The team has been sent on an intel gathering mission. Their target is an Imperial archive facility on Ansion. It's not going to be a terribly difficult mission. The facility isn't as well defended as others he's attacked in the past, and their mission is to gather crucial intel, not destroy the facility. This mission will give them intelligence to help them in future planned invasions and other major attacks planned in the coming year.
"Colonel! Dropping out of hyperspace in two minutes!" the pilot calls from the cockpit.
"Copy that," Lawrence says. Lawrence then looks around at the rest of his men. He had been given a team of 11 other experienced commandos for this mission. All of them have multiple missions in the Andromeda Galaxy under their belt. Lawrence knows they'll be able to get this done.
"Alright men. Finish studying those maps and photos, and gear up," Lawrence says. The men take a few last looks at the maps and photos they've been issued, then begin gathering their gear and checking their armor to make sure it's all in place.
Lawrence makes his way to the cockpit. Seconds after he enters the cockpit, the shuttle drops out of hyperspace, Ansion appearing up ahead.
Lawrence takes a moment to scan the defenses around the planet. He quickly counts four Star Destroyers and a cruiser in orbit over the planet.
"Take us around them. We may be off their scanners, but I don't want to risk them spotting us visually," Lawrence says.
The pilot nods, taking the shuttle on a long course well out of the way of the Imperial ships. Lawrence keeps his eyes out of the cockpit, watching the Imperial ships. Thankfully, there's no sign of any motion from the ships or any signs of TIE fighters moving towards them.
The shuttle heads past the ships and down into the atmosphere. The pilot guides the shuttle away from any Imperial outposts before taking it down and landing near a small gorge.
The pilot quickly opens the door, and calls out, "You're clear!"
The twelve Zulus hurry out of the shuttle. Lawrence looks around at everybody and says, "Alright men. With me." He then takes off at a steady trot, heading off into the high grass of the plains between them and the facility. Their armor has been painted a tan color to better camouflage them in the tall grass.
The twelve Zulus make their way through the grass, weapons at the ready, but rather confident they won't be spotted. The grass comes up to about their shoulders, and in some spots is up to the top of their heads. They're moving with enough speed that they are making good time, yet not so fast that their movement could be noticed in the grass.
The Zulus make their way around a hill and head straight for the facility. Moving at their current pace, it only take them about two hours after leaving the shuttle before they arrive at the facility.
As they near the facility, Lawrence takes a moment to analyze the layout. It's not very large, and is more of a flat facility than a tall one.
"Alright, men. Move in. Let's find an entrance," Lawrence says.
The team moves towards the outer wall of the facility. Reaching the outer wall, they quickly find an entrance into the facility. One of the other Zulus deploys a special cutting tool in one of his vambraces to cut through the lock. He finishes the job within a few seconds, and pulls open the door.
The Zulus make their way into the facility, drawing their weapons. Each of them scans their surroundings with their helmets, looking for any enemies.
"Move. Let's find the main data center," Lawrence says quietly to his men.
The Zulus move carefully and silently, heading in the direction they know the main data center to be located.
Coming around a corner, the Zulus run right into a pair of stormtroopers. The stormtroopers start to turn their weapons, but quickly realize they're facing twelve Zulus. Before the Zulus can even fire on them, the stormtroopers drop their weapons and put their hands up.
"Bind 'em," Lawrence orders. Two of his men move forward, each taking a pair of cuffs out of their belts and cuffing the trooper's hands behind their backs. They then remove the trooper's helmets to stop them from using the radio, and check for any other comm units before duct taping their mouths and moving them out of the way so hopefully they won't be spotted by anyone else before the mission is complete.
The twelve men move along the hallways, weapons raised. Lawrence is leading the pack, his finger on the trigger of his M4.
As they come around a corner and through a doorway, they emerge into a large room. Inside the room, they find about twenty stormtroopers.
Lawrence opens fire immediately, gunning down two stormtroopers. His other men also fire, killing about a dozen more. Several others attack the stormtroopers with knives, driving their knives through the gaps in their armor. Another Zulu raises one of his fists and roasts a stormtrooper with a jet of flame.
Within moments, the Zulus have killed every one of the stormtroopers. Lawrence looks around the room at the bodies and at the various items scattered around the room. Seeing nothing of value, Lawrence leads the team out of the room.
Lawrence leads them down another hallway. Reaching a corner, he glances around it and sees stormtroopers walking away down the hallway.
Lawrence looks around and sees a tank of liquid tibanna lying near his feet. Smiling, Lawrence uncaps it, turns it on his side, then slides the tank down the hall. He pushes it with such force that it slides almost the whole length of the hallway, spilling liquid tibanna the whole way. Lawrence then extends a fist and lets out a short stream of flame from one of his vambraces. The flame ignites the tibanna, flames streaking along the liquid until the entire hallway is full of flames, burning the stormtroopers alive.
"Nice one, Colonel," one of the other Zulus says, causing Lawrence to grin a bit under his helmet.
The team waits for the flames to die down. Once they do, they move down the hallway, past the burned bodies of the stormtroopers, and around another corner, finally arriving at the entrance to the main data center.
"Ghamdi, get us in there," Lawrence says. Captain Mohammed Ghamdi, the same Zulu who got the team into the facility, moves forward and uses the cutting tool on his vambrace to cut through the door's lock. He then opens the door, and the team moves into the room.
Lawrence looks around the room. The room, which is massive, is full of hundreds of consoles, computers, and databanks.
"This is it. Alright. Ghamdi, with me. The rest of you, kill anyone who comes near the door," Lawrence orders. The men of the team, and ten remain at the door while Ghamdi follows him over to the central console.
Lawrence removes a device from his pocket. The device was manufactured by Raytheon's Intelligence, Information and Services division. It was designed to be plugged into any computer system and hack into it. It also contained storage within it to which information could be downloaded from the hacked system.
Lawrence plugs the device into the console. The tech within the device begins hacking into the Imperial system, and breaks in after a few seconds.
"I've got it. We're in," Lawrence says. He then points to a keyboard beside him and says, "You take that one, I'll take this one."
Ghamdi nods and the two get to work. They hurriedly begin going through Imperial files and downloaded information that could be of relevance to the Alliance in future operations.
As they work to download the information, they can hear sounds of intermittent rifle fire as the other Zulus fire on stormtroopers that attempt to come to the data center to attack them.
Lawrence goes through file after file displaying schematics of important Imperial facilities and bases on Mid Rim and Expansion Region worlds, as well as reports on recent Imperial movements.
As he goes through the rest few files, Lawrence notices a few things that catch his attention. Taking a quick look, he realizes the Alliance would definitely be interested in this stuff, and quickly downloads it to the device as well.
As he finishes downloading the files, Ghamdi looks over at him and says, "I've got everything downloaded. If you have to, we're ready to go."
Lawrence nods and pulls the device out of the console, stowing it safely away in his belt. He then hurries over to the entrance with Ghamdi and says, "Alright men, let's go."
The Zulus, with Lawrence in the lead, head out into the hallway outside the data center, now strewn with bodies of at least twenty five stormtroopers.
The twelve men start making their way back the way they came in. By now, it's clear that the Imperials have been alerted to their presence. More and more stormtroopers keep coming at them, but all of them are gunned down within seconds.
As they continue, Lawrence suddenly hears something. The sound of dozens of bootsteps running along the hallways, getting closer. Instantly recognizing that the Empire really is onto them, Lawrence calls out to his men, "Move it, men. Double time."
Coming around a corner not far from the exit, Lawrence runs right into a group of four stormtroopers. However, before he can do anything, the stormtroopers step aside, and one of them says, "Go. Two of us will cover for you if you take the other two with you."
Lawrence hesitates, then says, "Why are you helping us?"
"Because we know a lost cause when we see one," the stormtrooper who spoke says.
Lawrence is quiet for a moment before he says, "Fine. Two of you with us, the other two stay here."
The stormtroopers nod. The one who spoke is one of the two to come with the Zulus while the other two remain behind, trying to make it look like they've been looking for the Zulus.
Lawrence leads his men and the two stormtroopers down the hallway towards the entrance they came in from. The team moves quickly, now that time is of the essence more than ever now. It takes them less than a minute to reach the doorway leading out of the facility.
The team races out through the doorway and out into the expansive fields of Ansion. Knowing that it won't be long before they're spotted, they move as quickly as they can through the grass. As they are running, Lawrence activates his commlink and calls out to the shuttle, "This is Lieutenant Colonel Lawrence! The Imps are onto us. Transmitting my location now. Come and pick us up!"
"We'll be on our way shortly, Colonel," the pilot responds.
The team keeps running as fast as they can across the plains in the direction of the spot where the shuttle landed. However, just 5 minutes after Lawrence transmitted that message, the team spots the shuttle flying towards them at high speed and low altitude. The pilot reigns in the shuttle just a few hundred yards away and lands.
The team sprints as fast as they can for the shuttle. When they reach the shuttle, they race up the boarding stairs, never slowing down until they are in the passenger bay.
"Get us out of here!" Lawrence yells. The pilot lifts the shuttles off the ground and pulls it up, firewalling the throttles. The shuttle leaps forward with the extra thrust, streaking up into the sky. In a matter of minutes, they have broken out of the atmosphere and into orbit.
"Prepare for jump to hyperspace," the pilot says to his copilot. Both of them hurry to program the navicomputer with the necessary coordinates. Aided by the shuttle's state of the art systems, it takes only a minute to finish programming the navicomputer.
"We're clear," the copilot says. The pilot responds by shoving the hyperspace throttles forward, and the shuttle makes the jump to hyperspace.
And, I'll end there. Hope this wasn't too bad.
I wanted to make a chapter just about the Zulu Force, with no other people helping them. I hope you like that I did. The information the Zulus gathered in this mission will also come into play again a few chapters from now, and will actually inevitably set up one of the side stories.
Next chapter will be a better one, and should be up soon. Until then, please leave a review, and stay tuned!