)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
Turangi, North Island, New Mandalore
)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
The hunting party crept carefully through the woods, careful not to make a sound and spook their prey from the area. The small copse of trees was the only cover as far as the eye could see. All around them lay the rolling, scrubby grasslands of the Kaimanawa Range.
The home of the Red Stag.
They had come due to a report from a local land owner of an 'Imperial' Stag seen in the area recently. No one believed the 14 point animal really lived in the area and perhaps the witness had misidentified a 12 point 'Royal' Stag. Seeing as how the range was part of Clan Bly's territory in New Mandalore the Marshal had to check it out himself.
Jade leaned over her tracker, the Kiwi Rawiri Lata, who was intently picking crushed wet leaves out of a muddy hoof print. "Marshal, we've found something."
Marshal Bly and his entourage trotted over to where the two Regulators had found the track and peered down at Lata's discovery. "He's a big lad to make a print that deep. How long ago?"
"Couple hours at most, sir." Lata estimated. The sniper pointed towards the foothills to the east. "He's most likely foraging in that area."
"Wizard. Jade, why don't you walk with me for a bit. Let the beaters try to flush out the beast." Bly suggested with what should have been a grandfatherly smile. She knew for a fact that her Clan Leader was just over fifty years old but you wouldn't have guessed it by looking at him. His smooth features and jet black hair were a lie that falsely testified that Bly must have been twenty years younger than Jade.
The hunting party fanned out into a straight line and moved forward. They crouched at the waist to stay below the ridgelines as they emerged from the woods. It wouldn't do for their prey to see them coming. No alien or human, as far as Jade knew, could outrun a Red Stag. The party was made up of an even mix of Kiwis and Clones. Mostly hanger-on's from Clan Bly or the Marshal's official office in New Wellington, they numbered over fifty. Jade was sure none of the lobbyists would have been here if it wasn't for the Marshal's influence with Prime Minister Taumata or Admiral Commander Bacara. Bloodsucking leeches like them existed in the Confederacy and Empire too, hell as far as Jade knew, there were probably some on Kazoook.
Jade matched the Marshal's step as she stooped at the waist alongside his creeping pace. "Red Stags can be spooked easily. My parents used to take me to hunt White-tailed bucks where I grew up in Idaho. They're smaller, but same creature."
"Flushing out your quarry is always the tricky part. I learned as much from Alpha-17 at command school on Kamino. Didn't do any real hunting until Saleucami and Felucia during my first war. Found it kept my skills sharp." Jade's eye fell to the lightsaber the Marshal kept tucked into a sheath on his armor's belt. He didn't mention Felucia very often, but some wounds never really went away.
"Now it's your third."
"The first one to hold what is mine. The other two were just to survive and make it here to New Mandalore." Bly said.
"This one started off with a bang but the Confeds have been pretty quiet. I mean if you don't count the nightly missile attacks against our shields and submarine and fighter incursions on our borders." Jade said, a tone of sarcasm creeping into her voice.
"Just being pests to keep us on our toes. They're trying to rework their plans after the First Order screwed the pooch over Fiji back in May."
"You'd think we'd be an afterthought following what happened to them at New Thyfeeria." Jade pointed out.
"It got Admiral Akfar fired. That's for sure. But you wouldn't hear it from the Confederacy. Have you even heard them mention it on their radio stations? They're pretending as if the entire thing never occurred."
"I don't really go in for the round the clock patriotic crap they put out. When I was a kid in the NAU at least we had music genres. Now its praise the Confederacy and lick Harris's butthole twenty-four hours a day with the same fifteen songs on every station from here to Kafrene Outpost."
"That's stellar. Probably why they hate Radio Free Mandalore so much. Probably why they hate us so much. They'd ignore us if they could, but they're going to wipe us out the moment they're done with their latest campaign against the Kuat System." Bly stated as he scanned the horizon for movement.
"Sir?" Jade was confused. The HoloNet had broadcast the entire Battle of New Thyfeeria as soon as it was over. They even admitted to the loss of the Flood, but the First Order had lost four of their biggest ships and the Space Force had lost an Eiffel. The Earth's biggest naval disaster in its entire history, on the water or in space.
"It's their new commander, this Admiral Hollander. According to our source in Paris, she's trying to lay siege to Gentis. You might not have heard but they landed a Legion on Anax two weeks ago. They're going to build a strike base there and start whittling down the 41st on Judicar. If Judicar falls then the Kuat Spur and the Imperial Navy will be cut off from the rest of the Empire." Bly explained.
"If that happens they'll be cut in half. How long could Phasma hold out on Palpatine Prime if she's cut off from her fleet?"
"A year, maybe. Just because of the logistics, but it will be a foregone matter. Then they'll bring back their big boys and BDZ us from orbit until our shields collapse."
"It will take a year's output from Venus, but I can see your point, sir. Though it is rather bleak." Jade's shoulders slumped. She was already labelled a traitor inside the Confederacy of Earth Nations. She had little hope for herself if she ever fell into their clutches again.
"That's why I'm sending out my bounty hunter teams again. How are the Regulators?" Bly asked.
Jade was taken aback for a moment. She had grown used to the safety of the city shields. New Mandalore's one foray outside of its protective barrier had downed a First Order Imperial class Star Destroyer, but they had also lost the Fool. The Empress, the sole remaining Acclamator protecting the nation, was still under repairs down in ChristChurch. "We were separated at Fiji for independent actions but we're back as a unit again. All summer we've been training hard at the Clan Bacara training grounds at Upper Hutt."
"Upper Hutt." Bly chuckled at a private joke, that only he and clones seemed to get when Upper Hutt was mentioned. "That's good. You'll be cleared for action behind enemy lines then."
"Yes, sir. But Marshal, you've got to know, Harris's boys will be expecting us." Jade warned.
"No doubt, no doubt. But it's imperative we do something to throw them off balance now, while their effort is focused coreward and at the breaking point along the Bloodstripe Run. They're like the idiot electrician screwing in a light bulb. We just need to come along and kick out their wobbly ladder from underneath them." Bly painted his picture to the commando leader.
"What would you have us do?" Jade asked. "Commando raids against Peru or snatch and grabs in Indonesia? Perhaps demo work in Australia against their Space Force HQ?" Jade hated every suggestion she gave her boss. They all came with much too great a risk for her team.
"Your ship, the Beskar Golem is stealth rated, correct?"
"Somewhat. The CEN has new sensors provided by the First Order which we haven't tested her against yet." Jade answered.
"And her range?"
"Orbitally, we can make it just about anywhere on Earth, but that's suicide. We stick to the atmosphere and stay low to avoid sensors. We can reach East Asia or Brazil on a one way trip. South Africa if we go down and over the pole. Trick is refueling and making it back." Jade explained.
"Oh, we've got plenty of people who will give you some gas for a chance to tweak Harris's tail. Half of his own citizens kriffing hate the sleemo's guts." Bly grinned.
"You mean the thirders and the fourthers. Fucking disgusting how they're treated. No better than slaves. And then they fool the Third Class into thinking they can move up to second class status with Confederate service."
"They got used up like cannon fodder up on Olympus Mons a couple months ago. Dank ferriik, who knows how many tens of thousands of them died building that fleet of theirs in a year." Bly swore.
"It's them isn't it?" Jade asked, realizing her boss's intentions. "You want us to stir up trouble with the lower classes?"
"Half the Confederate Legions are currently deployed outside the Sol System, and the majority of the rest are on Mercury, Luna and Mars, beside a handful at key sites around Earth. They're leaving their weaker Army units as a massive police force to keep the populace in line. Harris doesn't give a thought to how many Army troopers he loses. He plans on leaving them all on Earth while his elites move off world to the captured colonies anyway. He's trashing the planet and leaving his undesirables behind."
"Along with us dirty Mandos." Jade said. "And we can all choke on the failed climate control together."
"Precisely HQ's assessment, Captain." Bly told her.
"But surely the climate will hold out before the Empire returns. Our terraforming gear has the fuel to keep the South Pacific for a couple years." Jade added. They had bought the same gear that had terraformed Mars after the war. At first it had been just to fight the oncoming ice age created by the Empire-Earth War but pollution had increased substantially during the past years as the Confederacy burned away the surface of its own home world to gain the material for its new space fleet. After Moff Culter had died during the Battle of Four Navies nobody in the Empire had any desire to use the climate-manipulation gear anyway. Jade looked up at a clean sky and knew New Mandalore was one of the few places left on Earth that still possessed a blue sky.
"We will never last that long. The Empress is still on her back heels and even if her fleet turns itself around it will take a decade to retake the Bloodstripe after Akfar dug a Legion into every rock along the Run."
"I'll admit rations are starting to get old, but . . ."
"You haven't been privy to Marshal Salvo's briefings, Captain." Bly mentioned the Clan Salvo leader who was responsible for the supply chain of the nation. "We've blasted hundreds, maybe a thousand enemy bombers down over the Tasman. On one hand that's absolutely kriffing wonderful, but we are starting to feel the pinch with our anti-airspeeder missiles, whose critical components come from the Empire."
"What about work arounds, surely we can produce a replacement until a cloaked ship gets through the blockade?" Jade asked, hoping to diffuse the growing sense of urgency she was feeling. New Mandalore wasn't ready to take the fight to the enemy.
"Perhaps. But what about tibanna? That battle with the First Order dug into a lot of our reserve. Clan forbid the Confederacy actually lands a division somewhere along our shores. We don't have a Venus or an Earth 5 or a Vaedor System full of vape gas. Salvo predicts enough ammo on hand for one, maybe two, large land engagements and then our blasters run dry. Ironically, that will be when Harris lines us all up against a wall and puts a tibanna bolt in the back of all our noggins for resisting him for over twenty years." Bly sneered at the thought.
"Well if you expect a few shipments of guns to Confed Fourthers is going to turn the tide you're out of your mind, sir. No disrespect." Jade could get away with questioning her commander, even her Clan leader in New Mandalore. In any other nation on Earth she'd be arrested on the spot and probably executed by morning.
"They don't need slugthrowers. Harris has spent nearly his entire political career trying to take away his citizens' weapons. Under the Confederacy he sent his troops door to door to seize them. All that means is there are a couple million AKs buried in nearly every back yard or waiting at the bottom of every lake in the CEN. How many brushfire revolts did he have to put down after the Empire left last time? Thirty? Fifty? A hundred?"
"Maybe more." Jade admitted, recalling the brutal crackdowns she witnessed in China following the end of the Empire-Earth War. It was one of the reasons she threw away the Confederate blue-grey and now wore the armor of a Mandalorian.
"I'm not sending you and the other teams out to fight the Confederacy. At least, not head on." Bly stayed silent for several minutes as the hunting party crept into the Red Stags territory. The soft rustle of the scrub grass against their armored boots was the only sound that could be heard. They fell silent for a moment as Bly considered what else he could say to convince Jade. Soon Bly spok again. "Cody told me a story once of the old Death Watch. They had sent a man in to attempt to assassinate that di'kutla Duchess Satine Kryze at the Memorial Shrine, in Sundari on old Mandalore. The man had failed in his assignment and was about to be captured by a Jedi protecting the Duchess. Instead of accepting his capture, the infiltrator jumped from a balcony to his death."
"Sounds like a real John Wilkes Booth type." Jade replied. "Though he didn't die until they caught him a few days after he shot Lincoln."
"Booth was a fool. The war was already lost when he performed his final act. However, he did have some of the proper spirit of the old Death Watch in him. Ironic that he was a Confederate. The point is, a direct assault with what we have just isn't going to cut it. We have to approach our enemies from another angle."
"So you want to send us in for some wet work? My Regulators specialize in abductions and intelligence gathering." Jade was going to make sure the Marshal spelled out exactly what he wanted her team to do.
"I need smugglers. I need you to run support for the ones who will carry out the dirty work. I need hyperwaves that can get through Confed and FO jamming efforts to hear the Imperial HoloNet. But most of all I need agents dropped behind enemy lines and I need intelligence to get back out. The Earthlings should free themselves. If they don't Harris is going to leave them all here to rot, along with whatever shambles he blasts New Mandalore into if he can beat Phasma."
"It's still a big if. The Imperial Navy is getting stronger every hour."
"They're still outnumbered six or seven to one. New Mandalore is not enough on its own to pull troopers and sailors away from the fight along the Bloodstripe. We need a full on revolution on his doorstep to pull Harris's attention back to Earth. Opening a second front is the only way to shorten this war and end it before we run out of resources."
"You might be sending my team, and a lot of good clones and Kiwis out to die, sir." Jade nearly put her foot down. She'd been behind enemy lines before but this was like setting off a fuse that might end up with the whole planet exploding.
"Isn't that what they told you before you left on the Ares Mission? Capturing the biggest ship in the Galaxy ended the war."
"And you think starting a bigger war inside the Confederacy, a civil war, is going to end this one?" Jade asked.
"No, but it's not going to help things for our enemies either. Consider what I'm asking, Captain. We're starting operations next month." Bly informed her and then took several deliberate strides ahead to separate himself from the rest of the hunting party.
Five hundred meters ahead of the expedition a slight movement caused every member of the Marshal's entourage to freeze in their tracks. They were downwind from the majestic creature who had not yet caught their scent. Everyone waited. The prize was the Marshal's by Clan law. Bly cocked his head slightly and whispered to the nearby sharpshooter. "Lata, you've got the best eyes. Is he a Royal or Imperial?"
The Kiwi sniper raised the scope of his own rifle to his eye and studied the target as it grazed among the scrub grass. "Sir, it's neither. I count 16 points."
Everyone sucked in a collected breath. The Red Stag was a Monarch. Jade whispered quietly to the Marshal. "No Monarch has been seen on our Clan's lands since the end of the last war."
Bly raised his hunting rifle to his shoulder. It had no scope as the Marshal relied solely on iron sights. Jade pondered the irony of her conversation with her commander from just a few minutes before. Here Bly was, entering the territory of the Red Stag, a rare Monarch nonetheless, and he was about to unleash the most extreme violence on its peaceful world.
The creature raised its head and turned towards the Mandalorian on the slope before it. Its array of antlers were spread widely over its head like a majestic crown. Jade had seen Bly make much more difficult shots at further distances before. There was no way the Marshal could miss.
Yet, that is exactly what he did. The clone Marshal rose his rifle into the air and fired a warning shot, causing the animal to buck and then skitter away to safety. "And so it shall remain. Notify the Clan game warden about that beast and tell him it's a protected animal."
Bly met Jade's gaze for several seconds. An understanding passed between them. He would send her into the Confederacy to sow chaos. It would be up to her to decide just how far she was willing to take the Regulators. But unlike preserving wild game on her Clan's land, they were going to be faced with decisions that might save or doom the nation.
The hunting party broke up soon afterwards. Nobody wanted to take a larger trophy when the Marshal refused to kill what may have been the largest animal on North Island, and excuses were quickly made for members of the entourage to return to New Wellington or Auckland. The Marshal had given her a few days to decide as August was right around the figurative corner.
She wasn't sure if she'd make the decision on her own or give the team a vote. And if she decided against the move would some of the team resign and join other bounty hunter teams going behind enemy lines? She wasn't sure about a single one of them.
The Beskar Golem was parked among several dozen other airspeeders and vehicles in a school parking lot not far from the grasslands. Various pilots and clan guards milled about the transports awaiting the returns of their passengers. Jade, with Lata at her side, returned to the modified-hybrid ex-Soviet gunship to find most of the other Regulators lounging about inside the bounty hunting airspeeder.
Barrage was busy reading an old Batman comic book with his feet up atop the gunship's turbolaser controls. The clone had discovered a fondness for the escapism of the DC Universe since settling in New Mandalore. Nearby, the airspeeder's pilot Bitee Cyu was attempting to teach the Kiwi, Thomas Hargrave, the finer points of Cubikahd on a holoset behind the pilot's ejection seat.
"Blade to cube face four? That's a showy move. You play with too much bravado." The Talpini warned Jade's fellow Earthling Regulator.
"Strategy is an art, Bitee. Maybe I'm lulling you into a false sense of security." Hargrave replied.
Bitee chuckled. "There's nothing false about it. Blade to cube face two. I win."
Jade stepped to her pilot. "Wind her up, Bitee. We're heading back to New Wellington."
The crew dropped what they were doing and secured the Beskar Golem for flight. This time of year, in the southern hemisphere, you flew buttoned up or you froze your shebs off.
"How was the hunt?" Barrage asked the two returning Regulators.
Lata just shrugged. He never pulled his trigger once during the day. But then again the expedition was more about networking than actually working. Jade answered for herself and the sniper. "Talked with the Marshal. He wants us to start thinking about going out on raids again. Behind Confed lines."
There were several seconds of silence from the Regulators, before Bitee asked. "Exfils again?"
"Smuggling runs, it sounds like. Maybe some demo work. Support stuff for deep cover agents and the like. He wants us to stir up a giant pot of whatever the Admiral Commander has got cooking." Jade explained.
"I'm in for whatever Bacara and Bly want me to do. They've got me through two wars so far." Barrage announced. Jade wasn't surprised. Clones usually stuck with their clan leaders. The other Regulator's intentions were tougher to cipher out.
"Anyone hear from Singh?" Jade referred to her second in command, the Indian immigrant turned New Mandalorian Mason Singh. He had skipped out on today's excursion. Not because he had asked to be excused, but had simply not shown up at their rendezvous this morning.
"Nah, boss." Hargrave answered. "You know him. He's been skipping out on us for days at a time lately."
"Fifth time since we got back from Fiji." Lata said, referring to the recent battle and loss of the Acclamator, the Fool, which had been torpedoed out from underneath their feet.
"Maybe he's got a girl?" Bitee suggested, which got a chuckle from the crew. Singh had always been the more socially awkward of the group, preferring to stay mostly to himself. Though that had only been amplified in the past two months.
"Maybe bounty hunting isn't his priority anymore." Barrage said, making Jade wonder if the time was coming when she needed to find a new Regulator for her absent second-in-command.
"Whatever he's doing, this was unacceptable. We were summoned by the Marshal himself. Does he want to get booted from the Clan?" Jade suggested. In New Mandalore there were few fates worse than being clanless. You had no legal status without your clan. You could not own property or a vehicle, and any armor you wore would be a representation of yourself and not your Clan and family, which was insulting to nearly every Mandalorian. "I'm going to text him as soon as we land and give him a piece of my fucking mind."
She saw a few sly grins from her Regulators at her announcement. They were getting sick of Singh's attitude. Ever since the war had broken out Singh seemed intent on wrecking the crew's integrity to do his own thing. Maybe it was time for a shakeup.
Bitee started up the Beskar Golem's powerful engines. Even though they were well inside New Mandalore, technically they were still at war and the crew took their stations at the various weapons consoles and primed them for action. Jade climbed into the forward gunner slot and powered up the hyperwave. Imperial Holonet channels were spotty at best due to enemy jamming efforts. They could make out what was happening on the coreside of the Bloodstripe Run one hour out of every five these days. Not wanting to deal with the headache, Jade flipped the station to the most popular station on Earth and put it on the cabin speakers.
". . . that was our own special version of Confederate Idiot, originally sung by a band called Green Day when rock was legal in the good ole US of A. Back when there was a USA." The disc jockey's eternally excited tones filled the Beskar Golem as it lifted off and headed south. "Before that was Waist Deep in the Big Muddy by Pete Seeger. And aren't we all waist deep in the thick of it these days, especially all you kids listening to us from beyond the Maritime Exclusion Zone."
"Oh man, I love that song." Barrage complained. Gone were the days of digital satellite transmissions and wifi broadcasts. "I'll have to download it when I get home."
The broadcaster continued. "You're listening to Radio Free Mandalore and we will be back at the top of the hour with the news. Including Empress Phasma's guarantee to Ambassador Birgaan that the Empire will break the blockade one day. I guess Moff Hinter's recent promise wasn't just to Mars after all." The DJ laughed, "But first we've got a new block of banned Confederate music starting off with Bob Marley's Get Up Stand Up and including one of President Harris's least favorites, Public Enemy's Fight the Power."
The Beskar Golem crossed over the coast at Whanganui and followed the shore towards New Wellington. The Tasman Sea below was a chilly grey. Jade squinted her eyes as she spotted the spray from several whales below. Pods of Southern Rights and Humpbacks filled the sea. They had migrated here as the Confederate sea zones became more and more polluted over the years, killing off the smaller food sources and driving the whales south. Jade wished they could do more for the majestic animals before the rest of the Earth killed off the last of their planet's sea life. Perhaps they could have transported some of them to the great oceans on MotherGarden, Ro-loo or Ithellir before the war. Not that it would have helped much as all of those worlds were now occupied by the uncaring Confederacy of Earth Nations and the even viler First Order.
The gunship took it easy as it cruised towards the capital. Fuel was getting expensive as reserves slowly dried up across New Mandalore. Everyone was feeling the rationing pinch. Jade would have taken a bounty for a steak these days.
Unfortunately, the music had to come to an end as the hyperwave station switched over to the InterGalactic news as the giant stilted dome of New Wellington started coming into view.
Jade listened with one ear as she contemplated what she was going to do with the Regulators. Though intensely fit, she was no longer the young twenty-two year old Navy Seal she had been on the Ares Raid. Barrage had come here to retire, despite his unnaturally youthful looks, and the other Regulators may just want defend their homelands without the risk of what may be a suicide mission.
". . . Monday's raid by Kazoookian and Imperial hit-and-run pilots on the moon of Baron Do in the Kelshan System has resulted in Confederate crackdowns. The raid was reported as ineffective by Confederate News Networks but sources in the Kelshan Underground reported that the Space Force DeepSpace listening post on Baron Do was heavily damaged in the attack. On Wugosa, Confederate authorities have mandated that the entire civilian population report to work on a hover-railroad construction project. Not that the Harris administration seems to care, but this is in direct violation of the Earth's tradition of . . ." Suddenly the newscaster's thick Kiwi voice was cut off by the sound of a loud bang followed by what sounded like blaster fire. Someone screamed and then there was nothing but static for thirty seconds.
"What the fierfek?" Bitee asked over the gunship's comms.
"No idea." Jade admitted as she quickly flipped through local radio channels. They were all operating normally. It seemed that only the long range hyperwave radio station was affected. She quickly changed it back to the RFM to see if it had fixed itself.
Things were certainly clearing themselves up, in more ways than one. A voice came over the airways. "This is the Confederate Liberation Army. We now control the degenerate broadcasts of this illegal and condemned hyperwave station. We have hostages and have a series of demands that must be met or else we will start executing said hostages within the hour."
"Terrorists." Hargrave snapped.
"Confederate terrorists. But how did they get inside our borders? We've intercepted every submersible and airspeeder since the war began." Barrage pondered.
"Bitee, take us close to that site. I'm going to contact emergency services and tell them we are en route." Jade said. As soon as she flipped channels to the capital's emergency service network it was alive with calls. Every police unit in the city was being dispatched to the site of the emergency. Dispatchers were reporting callers describing a bomb blast and smoke rising over the building. Jade peered ahead and sure enough a thin plume of black smoke was rising into the sky from the middle of the city, marking the location.
Old Wellington included much of the city that had been destroyed during the opening moves of the Empire-Earth War. The town encompassed a waterfront promenade, sandy beaches, a working harbor and colorful timber houses on surrounding hills. This lay in the shadow of its more modern New Wellington, which towered over it on stilts rising from Wellington Harbor. The home of Radio Free Mandalore inhabited a ten story office building rising above Waring Taylor Street, which was slightly taller than the few meager skyscrapers surrounding it in the city's business district.
"Orbit slowly, Bitee. Let's get a look at what's happening before we head in." Jade ordered the pilot. Behind her she heard the cabin door slide open as Lata set up his Barrett M82 blaster conversion sniper rifle. Hargrave knelt next to him with a pair of macrobinoculars acting as a spotter for the sniper. "Switch over to hush mode."
"Switching to hush mode." Bitee answered, flipping several toggles in the cockpit. Instantly the whine of the engines cut down dramatically, as did the speed of the gunship. A scrambler mounted atop the craft started jamming incoming radar signatures.
"We've got one target atop the building. Looks like he's a roving OP." Hargrave suggested the distant figure was a lookout.
"Station guard?" Barrage asked.
"I don't think so. He's wearing some pricey armor. Don't recognize the clan sigil on his arm either. He doesn't look like he's spotted us yet. Seems to be focused on something in the street on the other side of the building." Hargrave admitted.
"Constables are arriving. Probably watching them establish a perimeter. Can you stun him from here, Lata?" Currently the Beskar Golem had turned her flank to the building to provide a better observation post for her sniper team and was hovering nearly two kilometers away over Victoria University's campus.
"I can hit him. But we're too far away for stun to have much effect through that armor." Lata replied.
"Probably just piss him off." Hargrave added. "How about the R-4?"
"Could work. I can guide the droid onto the target via my scope." Lata said.
"Do it." Jade ordered. Barrage grabbed the small droid out of its storage bin and tossed the softball sized, black orb to Hargrave who activated it. It chirped to life and asked for directions in a series of beeps and whistles. Hargrave merely pointed and chucked the little droid out the door.
The R-4 Recon Droid fell a hundred meters before its repulsars engaged and it was able to stabilize itself. Receiving the signal from Lata's scope for guidance it quickly raced across the rooftops towards it target. Jade had to use the zoom function in her own helmet to keep track of the target as it reached the distant Radio Free Mandalore building.
The scout atop the roof must have detected something at the last second just as the droid reached him. He had started to turn when suddenly the droid's built up charge went off like a cannon blasting off a large donut shape of blue energy. The circular burst was fired at near point blank range, catching the armored guard squarely in the face. He dropped to his knees and then fell to his face before he ever had the chance to send out a warning.
"Droid says its all clear. Target's vital signs are still within normal limits but he's out cold." Hargrave announced.
"Bitee, get us in there. Regulators, prepare for a tactical infil." Jade ordered as she climbed out of her own seat and grabbed her blaster. She joined the other Regulators in the cabin as the Talpini banked the Beskar Golem towards the building.
In a silent rush the gunship stopped only a meter over the roof. Nearby air-conditioning units prevented it from making an actual touchdown, but Bitee was a top-notch pilot and could hover off the deck for hours if he needed to.
Hargrave and Barrage were the first out and established a quick security perimeter under the cover of Lata's watchful sniper rifle. Jade leapt out next and hurried over to the prone figure. He wore Mandalorian armor with a fresh coat of blue-grey paint. This close, Jade recognized the mysterious sigil on his pauldron as a sketch of the flag of the Confederacy of Earth Nations. She disarmed the lookout and bound him with a pair of handcuffs. Lata dismounted and helped her throw the unconscious prisoner aboard the Beskar Golem before Jade signaled Bitee to lift off and take up a higher over-watch position.
The roof access door wasn't difficult to find as the unconscious lookout had left it wide open when he had stepped onto the roof. Radio Free Mandalore was still broadcasting the terrorists' demands and their own revisionist versions of recent history, but the inside of the office building was covered in ceiling speakers that were still auto-cycling through the RFM's extensive playlist. The ending refrain of Crosby, Stills and Nash's Ohio could be heard from below.
Barrage was carrying the Z-6 rotary cannon slung over his shoulder and resting at the ready on his right hip. The clone took the lead while Hargrave and Jade provided cover on his flanks and Lata performed rear security.
"Keep it tight. Set to stun. Switch over to internal comms." Jade ordered before doing so herself. The HUD in her helmet started giving her tactical readouts of each of the squad members, including vital signs and ammo counts. The Shazam app even identified the titles and performers of the music that were currently blaring through the building, muffling all other sounds. Thermals showed a large group of people in the main studios on the six floor, but they didn't show any other terrorists. Which only meant their opponents would be wearing Mandalorian beskar and could be anywhere.
They found the body on the tenth floor. The place seemed to be abandoned except for a lone being lying motionless in the main hallway next to a rolling custodial cart. Jade reached it first as the other Regulators swept the rooms and nearby offices for threats. The body was a Kadas'sa Nikto wearing yellow cleaning gloves with a large bullet hole in the back of his head. Jade read the name Neeku on his janitorial nameplate.
"They shot him because he was an alien." Hargrave said.
Jade nodded. Her thermals alarmed. Below them the hostages were being pushed around and arranged into a circle. Perhaps to protect whatever was in the center of it. "Shit. We've been made."
"How the hell did they hear us up here?" Lata asked.
"Don't know but get ready for anything. We've got to free the others before they end up like Neeku here." Jade said.
There wasn't anyone on the next three floors, though there were signs that they had been abandoned right before the squad had swept them. The terrorists were consolidating their numbers to face the Regulators, suggesting there weren't many of them to start with. Outside the building the Wellington constables were addressing the building with bull horns and shining bright spot lights that shone through the glass windows.
The sixth floor was the home of the main recording studios and housed the engineering station and the offices of the on-air talent. Jade imagined that it was most likely a hub of activity but was completely abandoned now that the terrorists held the broadcasting rooms.
J. Cole's She Knows blasted from the overhead speakers as the bounty hunters silently swept the offices and meeting rooms for hidden enemies. The place was empty as the four of them came face to face with the large double doors leading to the sound studio. Across the doors in still wet spray paint were the words 'Death to Death Watch'.
It was too quiet for Jade's liking. They should have come across one of the Confederates by now. They had the forethought to put a scout on the roof; surely they would have more spread out around the building. Unless, she had the sickening thought, they had pulled back to ambush her team.
She checked her thermals. Sure enough twelve people were on their knees facing the door on the other side. They all appeared to be bound with their hands behind their backs. As team leader, her HUD had some pricey upgrades from Marshal Bly and she activated the x-ray viewers. Immediately the perceived hostages changed from their heat signatures to kneeling skeletons.
The x-ray imager revealed three terrorists standing behind the hostages. The beskar in their armor and steel in their guns pointed at the hostages glowed white under the x-ray. They alternated from pointing their weapons at their prisoners to the door that stood between them and the Regulators. Another terrorist was seated at the main DJ microphone continuing to spout Confederate lies over the airways while a fifth armored man stood near the rear of the room next to the far exit. He was alternating between holding his hand to his ear, pointing at the door and presumably telling the others to be at the ready.
Jade held up her hand to stop her team. She flashed the signal to the other Mandalorians to cease their chatter. She lifted up her helmet to uncover her lower face and mouthed the words 'comms are compromised'. The team nodded their understanding.
She flashed a series of hand signals detailing her new plan and pointed towards the engineering bay next to the main studio. Sliding on their bellies, they made their way into the darkened, smaller room. A glass window from the studio let in light, but none of the team dared rise up to reveal their new position. A quick check of the thermals showed the terrorists were still focused on the door to the outer hallway.
With the team centered on Barrage and his rotary canon she flashed the hand signal for stun weapons only. She and Lata primed a pair of flash-bangs before she pointed two fingers at Hargrave signaling to begin. The Kiwi Mandalorian stood up and shoved his E-22 double-barrel blaster rifle straight through the glass, shattering it into a crystalline cascade.
His blast of double shock circles impacted the back of the terrorist speaking into the mic just as the flash bangs went off. The Regulators had primed their helmets to protect their eyes and ears from the detonations. Everything appeared to Jade to be moving in slow motion.
The three terrorists guarding the hostages slowly turned towards the direction of the new attack as Barrage's weapon charged up. The clone leveled his weapon. In between heartbeats his weapon discharged dozens of stun rounds.
The hostages collapsed as the shock circles impacted with them. The three Confederates lasted longer since they were protected with beskar painted in the revolting colors and sigils of the CEN. They staggered for a moment, as they struggled to raise their weapons. They finally passed out and went down when Lata and Jade added their weight to the stun attack.
There was a sudden boom and the engineering room exploded, knocking all four of the Regulators to the floor.
Jade snapped back to her feet with her weapon at the ready. "What the fuck was that?"
"Claymore. Didn't see it next to the window, boss." Lata reported.
Jade swung her weapon back and forth as she leapt into the studio. She kept the three terrorists by the hostages covered. The music from the hallway had stopped when the blast destroyed the engineering tables. Lata knocked the unconscious terrorist at the mic out of his chair and disarmed him. Jade looked around the room. "Where is the fifth one?"
"Never saw him. He must have stepped out a second before we started our assault." Barrage said.
"Guys, I need a hand." Hargrave said weakly. Jade jumped to the Kiwi's side. Blood was dripping from between the plates of his armor. "Chunk of shrap bit me."
"Lata, get the first aid kit." Jade snapped as she took off Hargrave's chest plate to locate the wound and apply direct pressure.
"Boss, we might have a bigger problem." Barrage announced.
Jade turned to see what the clone was talking about. Barrage had slung his rotary cannon over his shoulder and was peering at a large device, sitting atop several barrels along the wall. A smaller device sat next to it with a timer slowly counting down. There were two minutes left.
"Is that. . .?" Lata started.
"A bomb." Barrage confirmed.
"Can you diffuse it?" Jade asked.
Barrage picked up the smaller clock device and flung it to Jade. "Hold this."
The device had a trigger mechanism and antenna attached to it. Jade gave the trigger a tentative squeeze which, to her surprise, stopped the timer. "It's got some sort of dead man switch attached to the clock."
"That's a short wave transmitter attached to the handle." Barrage said.
"Can you diffuse it?" Jade asked.
"Never got trained as a bomb trooper but I've buried enough anti-walker mines. If you get that thing out of range from the receiver here on the explosives it will be locked in the pause function." The clone explained. Made sense to Jade.
"Attention in there." A voice came from out in the hallway. "This is New Wellington police. We're here to negotiate the release of your hostages."
"Officers. We are a strike team from Clan Bly. The room is secure. We need help securing prisoners and evac the hostages. Be advised there is at least one confirmed hostile still at large in the building." Jade yelled to the police.
"Understood, Clan Bly. We are coming in." The officer announced. A few seconds later a dozen heavily armored SWAT officers entered the room behind energy shields. Their weapons were drawn and they wore the beskar of Clan Bacara. "Holy shit, is that a bomb?"
Jade nodded and held up the trigger device. "And it will blow if I let go of this."
"Roger, roger. Men, secure this scum and carry these hostages outside." The SWAT leader ordered. Immediately his team started picking up hostages and carrying them outside. They pulled off the terrorist's helmets and kicked away their weapons. Slapping them in heavy stun-cuffs they hauled them out of the building as well.
"I've got a wounded man." Jade said.
Two police troopers came forward with a stretcher and put Hargrave atop it. With a heave one of them and Lata lifted the wounded Regulator off the floor. Jade told her sniper, "Stay with him."
"We've got the bomb squad on alert, but the nearest free team is two hours out. Local teams are busy diffusing a Volcano II missile that failed to detonate against the shield last night. They've been at it for ten hours already." The SWAT leader reported.
"I'm not holding onto this for two hours." Jade said.
"I'm serious, boss. I can't diffuse this. All I can do is break a couple things so that loose terrorist doesn't come back and blow it before the bomb troopers get here." Barrage said.
"That's alright, do it quick and then go with the constables and help secure the perimeter. I'm going to get this thing out of range." Jade turned her comm back to the squad channel. "Bitee, are you still there?"
"Hovering above you as we speak. Couple of constable airspeeders up here now as well, that have asked me to leave." The Tapani replied. "I told them to piss off. Did I say that correctly?"
Despite the gravity of the situation Jade smirked. Even after years of living with the Kiwis some of the aliens still had trouble adopting Terran turns of phrase. "Sounds about right to me, Bitee. I'm on my way up with a package. We need to get out of this neighborhood in a hurry."
"Copy that, boss. I'm ready and waiting." Bitee signed off.
"Officers, vacate the building. If this fails then I don't want any innocent civilians caught in the blast." Jade said as she moved to the door.
The officer in charge twirled his finger towards the ceiling signaling his men to wrap it up. They left as a tactical team, with their weapons at the ready in case the loose Confederate showed himself.
Jade left the studio and sprinted towards the stairwell. One hand tightly clasping the detonator while the other held her trusty DL-44 blaster pistol. She bounded up the stairs two at a time. She was rounding the top stairwell with the roof exit in sight when the blast hit her.
The shotgun's blast lifted the ex-commando off her feet and flung her backward down the last flight of stairs. Her back impacted solidly with the floor, her armor the only thing that stopped her spine from snapping in two. Somehow, she still held onto the detonator.
She tried to raise her DL-44, but it was suddenly kicked out of her hand. The weapon skittered away down the stairs. She tried to rise up and another stomp slammed her back into the floor tile.
Jade had absolutely no quit in her. She rolled her legs back and attempted to flip herself onto her feet. Halfway through the move a heavy boot slammed down on her chest and pinned her to the floor. She finally got a good look at her assailant as he stood over her. Instead of the blue-grey armor the other terrorists donned, the man over her wore a very familiar gray and gold armor. She had fought alongside that very suit in over thirty combat missions.
Jade's eyes widened in shock before narrowing in anger. "Singh! I knew no fucking Confed shithead could crack our comms." She snapped at him.
Mason Singh pointed his RSKF-44 Heavy Blaster Pistol at her face. "About time you figured out something on your own, boss. Or should I say, traitor."
"You're working with them? Harris's assholes? You're the damn traitor." Jade wanted to spit in his face. Their current positions and faceplates prevented her from achieving her desire, however.
"One man's villain is another man's hero. I'm going to be the motherfuckin' man when I get to Confederate Center with your head on a pike." Singh laughed. He leaned over her, practically shaking with nervous anticipation
"You'll never make it out of New Mandalore alive." Jade threatened as she squirmed under his boot heel. "The rest of the Regulators will gun you down."
"Ha! It's going to be super easy, barely an inconvenience. I'm betting you were rushing up to the Golem, and all you've left onboard is poor little Bitee. One small fry like him isn't going to take much effort. Might even take him as a prisoner. The CIA would love to get their hooks into a Clan Bly operative. Meanwhile the Kiwi pukes and alien clone copies will be too busy digging through the rubble here to notice we're gone until long after the fact."
"But why, Singh? The Clan gave you a home when you were only a kid."
Singh jerked back as though he had been slapped.
"Why? Why?" He asked, his tone a mix of rage and stupefaction, as though he were offended at how Jade just didn't seem to get the seemingly obvious. "Because the Empire came and blew up this planet. They burned India and murdered my family. While my parents had been lucky to be here when that war started we had to resort to begging for scraps and handouts. Then one day the Kiwis betrayed us and started kissing clone ass. It wasn't right. The Empire and New Mandalore need to burn. Just like Earth burned."
"That's why you didn't want to capture Admiral Akfar last year! And you nearly stopped us from freeing all the fourthers from that slave train. You even killed that First Order pilot to prevent him from talking to us when the war began." Jade was finally putting the pieces together.
"It wasn't enough." Singh insisted, seeming to take a sick pleasure at finally being able to express his true feelings. "I was merely picking at the scab. Stopping the lies that Radio Free Mandalore spews would have ripped open the wound. And soon, very soon, the Confederacy is going to sit back and watch all of you fucking traitors bleed to death on your pathetic little island."
"We caught your friends downstairs. Twenty years here and all you found was five other Confed cosplayers to join your little gang. I saw the pathetic way they fought. They're going to talk, Mason. They're going to give up your whole little enterprise. You only took RFM off the air for a couple of hours." Jade baited him.
"Is that so? Let's see how much shit they can talk without their precious little radio station." Singh moved his blaster pistol to the side and reached down for the detonator.
Jade held onto it in a death grip for as long as she could. He sat down on her stomach and straddled her. With a mighty tug, Singh yanked it free. He didn't even try to grasp it, instead flinging it down the stairwell where it fell beyond their reach. Jade couldn't see it but she knew the timer had restarted.
It was the moment she was waiting for. She just needed him to get in close. Her vision went red as she placed her left gauntlet to his chest and activated the miniature Geonosian sonic blaster embedded in the palm.
Mason Singh was blasted off her stomach, upwards and straight back into the top of the flight of stairs. The force of the impact caused him to drop his blaster pistol.
Jade was on her feet in a second. She took the ten stairs separating them in a single bound, withdrawing her KB-29 vibroknife in midair. A primal roar tore from her throat as she plummeted down on the traitorous Singh and plunged the weapon between his chest and abdominal armor until the blade impacted his back armor and refused to go any further. She twisted the blade and then mercilessly slashed it free, opening up his left torso.
Blood fountained upwards for a few seconds and then ran in a waterfalling stream down the stairs. Jade glared at the dying man. "We took you in. You were one of us!"
Jade grabbed Singh by his shoulders and roughly hoisted him up into a sitting position, her helmet separated from his by centimeters. "We fought together. Bled together. I trusted you. Relied on you. How could you side with those bastards after all we've seen them do?"
Jade pulled Singh's helmet off and tossed it aside. Sweat poured down Singh's face as his expression twisted in pain. She grabbed Singh's chin and forced him to look at her. There was no remorse as he stared up at her.
"Tell me why, you son of a bitch!" Jade demanded, her voice hoarse as anger mixed with the shock of betrayal. " After all we went through, all the good times and the bad, how could you throw away what the Regulators have together? How could you betray me?"
Singh's face contorted in vicious defiance even as his chest began to convulse, his breath shallow. "I'm a Confederate! If you're not with us, then you are against us." Mason Singh swore with his dying breath.
Jade felt for a pulse and came up empty. She looked around for the detonator but realized it had tumbled down several floors below. There was no telling how much time she had left. She leapt to her feet and charged towards the door, slamming into it with her body and flinging it open.
Ahead of her was the welcome sight of the Beskar Golem hovering just over the edge of the building with its open cargo door facing her direction. Two New Wellington gunships circled nearby ordering people to evacuate the area over their loudspeakers.
Below her feet the building seemed to shudder slightly. Jade didn't have time to think. Her feet had already figured out the one plan open to her. Run.
The rooftop was already buckling as she neared the edge of the building. A fiery explosion was blasting free of the windows on the floors below. A shockwave destroyed the office building's supports while a giant fireball crashed through each successive ceiling in its race for the roof.
Jade leaped across the chasm separating her from the Beskar Golem. In the cockpit Bitee stared at her in wide-eyed horror. Below her was nothing but ten stories of air; even her beskar couldn't save her from an impact from that height.
The gunship was too far. Her heart sank as her hands missed the edge of the bay door and she fell beneath the Golem.
She slapped the controls on her right gauntlet and pointed her wrist at the bottom of the distancing gunship. With a dull thud her fibercord whip sunk into the ventral armor. Her jump swung her back and forth like Spiderman underneath the Beskar Golem as they were both bracketed by the concussions pouring from the collapsing building.
"Bitee, I'm ok. Get us the fuck out of here." Jade announced over the squad channel.
"Got you, boss. I will set us down nearby." The little Talpani did just that several minutes later.
Barrage and Lata met the dangling Jade as she came in for a landing. They told her Hargrave was being seen by the police medics but it looked like he'd recover just fine.
Jade watched as the smoke and fire cleared under the concentrated efforts of the New Wellington Fire Department. People on the streets were fuming over the attack. Jade couldn't blame them.
She blamed Mason Singh, and she also blamed herself. How could she have been so blind?
"What do we do next, boss? Nobody is safe if they can hit us here." Lata asked.
It was the sort of question she had been pondering ever since she had talked with Marshal Bly earlier in the morning. Singh's betrayal had given her the answer she was looking for.
"We take the fight to them."
)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
Up Next: Birth of a Rebellion
)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
Due to recent glitches, I have no idea if the story is being read or not other than your faithful reviews. Some may say FFNET is on its last legs. Don't worry loyal readers. The story is up on Archive Of Our Own under the same name and author. If something happens here, you'll still be able to read it over there. But a word of warning the Review Wookie inhabitates everywhere the story goes