Chapter 14

Supervisor Aylard had chalked up Davic's death as accidental, clearing all the other IPEC troopers of blame. He also pointed out that without Xan the operation probably would have been a failure. The holocam footage from all the helmet cams was missing when they got up on the cliff. Rydell had set off an EMP mine with all the helmets around it so that it fried the electronics for a little while, they had already been supplied new helmets while the old one were going being refurbished.

An hour after what was supposed to be lights out Xan and Mar went to the hangar to prep and tune the two Blastboats that would be making the run off Carida. Once that was done Xan set his sights on gathering parts for the Nova Wolf.

"Mar, give me hand over here. I want this sensor suit for the Wolf."

"What? Are you crazy?"

"No, I'm not going to be able to find anything like this in the private sector. Just be glad I don't want the sublights." Xan joked, as they began to disassemble the sensors from one of the other Blastboats. Rydell showed up around midnight and set the demolitions, the Empire was never going to forget what they were going to do. It was not until an hour before the artic sun rise that the rest of the group showed up, and that was when Rydell went off to find the sniper instructor.

Rydell made his way down the darkened corridors, only the perm lights were on. Nobody was awake accept for those who were going to escape. The sniper instructor's room was near the middle of the compound, towards the small cafeteria. He had to work fast, the compound personnel would be waking up in a few minutes, if he waited to long he would be caught. The door was easy enough to open, especially with all the high tech gear that had been supplied by the Empire, there wasn't a lock that they couldn't crack in all of the Empire. The door opened slowly, and as quietly as Rydell could.

The light was on, and the sniper instructor sat at the small desk. The room was as neat as could be expected from any lifelong Imperial agent. The instructor did not turn around until the door shut.

"What are you doing in here, and why are you in full gear?" The instructor asked as he spun around.

"I've come to kill you." Rydell said matter of factley.

"Why?"

"Revenge. You killed my father. Senator Artell, from the Corbata system."

"I knew you looked familiar." The instructor mused as he moved closer to Rydell. His hand rested on the blaster at his hip. "So exactly how do you plan on killing me?"

"Like this!" Rydell lunged foreword and triggered the wrist blade. The instructor drew his blaster but it was too late, the blade found its mark, right at the bridge of his nose, blood squirted on Rydell as the body collapsed to the floor.

•••

"Mar, set the scanners on passive. Noo-gin, give me a broad channel search on all Imperial emergency frequencies." Xan rifled off orders to his crew, they were all waiting on Rydell, and Xan's chrono showed that it was nearing the go time, regardless of weather Rydell was with them or not. "Mak, are you there?"

"Yeah, what's up Xan?"

Xan looked over at Makazu sitting in the copilot seats in the other Blastboat. "I'm gonna tell you what I just told my crew. Keep the scanners on passive mode, and monitor all Imperial emergency frequencies. And don't shoot until we're shot at first. Got it?"

"Yes, sir." Makazu said out of habit.

"Why didn't you give us that last part?" Mar asked.

"Because I know none of you are smart enough to shoot unless I tell you to." Xan smiled at her, and the other two chuckled from the rear. The Lieutenant checked the chrono on his wrist datapad, almost time to go. When he looked back up there was Rydell, trotting across the ferrocreate floor towards his Blastboat.

Even though the transparasteel was dark Xan could see Rydell as he sat down in the pilot's seat and strapped in.

"You ready to fly yet or this place going to blow up with us in it?" Xan chided.

"I'm ready when ever you are. Did you give them the orders yet?"

"What, the comm Silence we're currently breaking, or the one about the scanners being set on passive?"

"Both. Let's go, once we're in the air maintain strict comm Silence." Rydell looked over to Xan, who gave a thumbs up and turned off his microphone.

The repulsorlifts whined as Xan gave them more power, and followed Rydell. Neither ship used the sublight drives because it would risk detonating the explosives, not to mention it was against regulations, and they wanted it to look like a regular training flight until it was too late to stop them. The explosives would go off long before anybody noticed them anyway.

Xan gave the sublight drives power as the ship broke out into the early dawn tundra. The rising sun reflected gold and orange off the glazed snow. The main viewport darkened to dampen the affects, but it was still spectacular. A beautiful start to her new beginning with Xan, Mar thought. Xan kept pace with Rydell as he gradually increased speed. Neither of the crews saw it, two minutes later when the compound went up in flames, the hangar doors collapsed in, preventing any form of immediate pursuit, the only thing that could stop them was a Star Destroyer in high orbit.

"What's the emergency frequencies look like?" Xan asked, as he held formation off of Rydell's port rear quarter, knowing that Rydell was probably asking the same question.

Noo-gin was silent for a second before he answered. "Yep, there's the base's mayday. We should have a response any second." He paused. "The reply is coming from the Citadel; they'll probably relay that info to some support group."

"Yeah, well did they mention us?" Xan snapped. They were almost out of the atmosphere, they would be able to make the jump in a few seconds, they were almost safe.

"Nobodies noticed us yet." Noo-gin answered.

"If they notice us, you tell me immediately." Xan turned to Mar, "Have you logged in the jump coordinates yet?"

"I did it before you even thought of it." She said smugly and flashed a playful smile at Xan.

"IPEC one to IPEC two, do you copy?"

"Two here." Xan said, keying for the comm Again.

"Jump on my mark. Three. . .Two. . ." Xan's hands settled on the hyperdrive levers as Rydell counted backwards. "One." Xan hauled back on the hyperdrive levers, and saw a sight that he hadn't seen in months, the safety and security of hyperspace.

"Where we headed Xan?" Klown asked.

"I don't know." Xan shrugged. "Where we headed Mar, you put in the coordinates."

"Y'Toub system." She answered.

"You know what that means people?" Xan asked like some kind of hacked up comedian in a dank cantina.

"We're eatin' with the slugs tonight." Vors chimed in.

"What do you mean?" Mar asked.

"The Hutts, we're going to Nal Hutta." Xan supplied, knowing it would be an educational remark coming from him, instead of the biting tongue lashing from either of the others.

•••

The pair of ships screamed along through hyperspace for two hours. It's was a carefully planned move, Rydell knew that the Empire would not follow them to the Hutt's home system. They, or more precisely, Thrawn would send some sort covert agent or bounty hunter. Nothing they could not handle, as long as the group stayed together, their survival depended on it. Also on Nar Shadda Rydell could get connected with a local Black Sun Vigo that would be able to set them up with work, or a front for some sort of illegal activity.

They would be safe there for a while, longer than they would be almost anywhere else, except for maybe among the Rebellion. The whole thing depended on them staying together though. Alone they could be very dangerous, they had the best training the Empire could provide, but their strength lay in the fact that all seven of them were the most deadly people in the Empire. Staying together multiplied the deadliness seven fold, it just depended on all of them understanding that.

Rydell got up from the pilots seat a little while before reversion to real space, to use the refresher. When he opened the door what he thought was a body fell out onto the floor.

"What is this!" He shouted, and both Makazu and Olsaa looked back at him. "I thought I told you two he wasn't supposed to come." Rydell yelled when he realized that the body on the floor was still alive, and it was Mahjong Dee, the one person from either crew that they had wanted to leave behind.

"You can't fly this ship without me." Mahjong stuttered as he got his feet underneath himself again. "You need me to keep this thing in the air."

"What? We're not doing good enough right now? How did you know that something was going on?" Rydell demanded. He was very tempted to just trigger his wrist blade and be done with the whole thing, but then he would have to clean up the blood stain.

"Well, I fig'ered when you came and got Olsaa in the middle of the night that something was up. So I followed you, and stowed away aboard the ship when you were all getting it prepped. It's a good thing I did, cause there isn't a technician among you."

That made a whole lot of sense. Xan and Mar were more than qualified to tear down rebuild, refurbish, and customize any piece of equipment on either ship, and Rydell knew his way around a hydrospanner as well, they didn't need him, and he really believed that they did. Like it or not, Rydell was stuck with him for the time being.

"Do you have any of your gear?" Rydell barked, not at all happy with what the situation.

"I brought it all, can't believe you guys didn't notice it." Dee said smugly, as if he were better than any of the others.

"Good, maybe I can make some use of you." Rydell knocked him against the bulkhead as a show of power.

"Rydell, two minutes till reversion to real space." Olsaa called from the cockpit.

"I should really just space you right now." Rydell growled.

•••

Xan was lying in his bunk, waiting for Rydell to come back from his meeting with his Black Sun contact. It was not safe for them to go parading around on Nar Shadda in Imperial uniform, they would become targets in seconds. Even going out in the uniform cloak pulled over his head Rydell was still running an immense risk of being gunned down on the street. Marnist paced back and forth from the cockpit to the rear bulkhead like a caged rancor.

"Would you stop pacing Mar? You're making me nervous." Xan said. She spun on her heels to face him.

"I'm going insane Xan. I've got to get out of here and do something soon!"

"Not till dark. We smack of Imperial, any right minded bounty hunter or smuggler will vape us on sight. When it's dark we'll be safe, not to mention that I'm a target for any bounty hunter out there on my own."

"Urrr!" She slammed her fist into the bulkhead.

"You're going to bust your knuckles doing that." Xan warned. "And if you do that it makes it hard to fire a blaster."

"I don't care Xan, I gotta do something!"

"Fine let's grab a ball and go toss it around in the hangar." Xan offered.

"We don't have a ball Lieutenant." Vors said, matter of factley.

"Alright then. A hydrospanner." Xan said, and began to rummage around in the tool kit.

"Are you serious? A hydrospanner?" Mar looked on in disbelief.

"You want something to do. So let's go."

When Rydell got back to the hangar he saw both crews outside the ships, apparently playing keep away from Mahjong Dee with a hydrospanner. He chuckled to himself and continued on. The hangar was crowded with many other beings, some of them were watching the Imperials play their stupid game. Great, the whole moon will know in a couple of hours. Oh well, they'd be able to fend for themselves as long as they all stayed together, that is except Mahjong Dee, he had to go.

The contact had set Rydell up with an audience with the local Vigo that night. They would find out what the Vigo was going to have them do, probably set them up with a smuggling ring, or something along those lines. Nothing to intricate, but it would hold them over for awhile, until they could get back to Katal. In a few hours he and Xan would be sitting with the Vigo.

The room was dark. The Vigo sat behind a desk cobbled together out of starship parts and shipping crates. The Vigo was a large man, with small cunning eyes, that were constantly darting from Xan to Rydell and then to his two Trandoshan guards. Even though it was Black Sun the furnishings were less than standard with Rydell and Xan sitting on packing crates that had been over turned, and the complete lack of scanners in the room, not to mention the ancient computer terminal that Noo-gin would laugh at. The two sat still and quiet as the Vigo talked over his intercom with what sounded like a Rodian trying to speak Basic.

"Why hasn't he been taken out yet? You're off the job!" The Vigo punched the com button before the other had any time to protest. "Stupid Greenies. Can't trust them to do anything. Now to your business."

Xan and Rydell exchanged glances, both tracking on the same target.

"My contact tell me you and your group is looking for work, since you're already part of the organization it shouldn't be to hard to put you two someplace, but the others," He shook his head, and looked down at the datapad sitting atop his derelict desk. "I don't know, that's a lot of people, and I don't have an other ship lying around to throw at you guys. I'll probably send you back to your shipping front on Katal, do some gun running, smuggling, the sort of thing you were doing before."

"How about a contract." Rydell interjected.

"What, you want this in writing?"

"No, a bounty. It sounds like you need some help killing someone. We can do it."

"You may have been at the Academy, but you're leagues away from dealing with who I need killed. I recognize those badges, and that unit anachronim. You boys are the explorers, not soldiers." He looked at them with slanted eyes.

"That's what the Empire wanted everybody to believe so they could get us past the Rebels. We were trained in the latest in Imperial infiltration, surveillance, combat, and assassination. We can do whatever you need done."

The Vigo stroked his stubble covered chin, and looked at them contemplatively. "Can you now? Look at this file." He handed a datapad over his desk to Rydell. Rydell skimmed through the file like anything else he ever read. A heavily defended underworld kingpin who liked to parooze around in the Corellian Sector with armed guards. He ran a spice smuggling cartel that was draining Black Sun's local profit margin.

"We've tried ten different bounty hunters. They all run into the same problem. Even if they get close enough to kill him their to preoccupied with his guards shooting at them that they can never get the kill shot. We've wounded him, five or six time."

"You just need better bounty hunters." Rydell scoffed. "We can do this without a problem. We just need to know where he's going to when."

"It's all there in the file." The Vigo said. "It's a fifty thousand credit job, with and extra thousand for everyone of his underlings you take out."

"Sweet deal." Xan offered.

"Yeah, well when bounty hunters are getting carved up you have to keep making the deal look better. If your crew can pull this off I can promise you more than that." The Vigo said slyly.

"I guess we'll see you tomorrow." Rydell answered.

"Your cocky, I think I like your friend better." The Vigo said to Rydell.

"Just hope he likes you. He's the best sniper in the galaxy. Kill ya before you even know he's there."

The two walked out of the office. "I don't like him." Xan said under his breath.

"Don't kill him. He's going to make us rich." Rydell laughed.

"Aw, do I have to?" Xan whined jokingly.