Chapter One. Assignment on Ambria Location: Ambria

Could it get any hotter on this planet? Castin thought to himself and shuffled his shoulders. It was about one hundred degrees and he had a sixty-pound bag on him with explosives and other gear. Castin loved the mission but he hated the weather simply because he was wearing level three body armor and camo that weighed him down and didn’t breathe. The mission was simple, on a planet Ambria, an imperial training camp was discovered by spies and it was their job to go in and run it down with the help of wraith squadron, six wraiths on the ground along with six other GF operatives and six in the sky flying A-Wings and X-Wings would be our air support. Castins job was simple, sneak in place a heavy charge while his spotter Anakin kept a keen eye on him and the surroundings get out, go to another area set up an E-Web gun for heavy support and demolish the base and all resistance. Castin couldn’t have loved the operation any more than he did. This was life for him and he did it well. Anakin Wraith squadrons CO looked equally stressed by his fatigues. Castin made several movements with his hands and Anakin nodded and got his blaster out. Castin turned and started at a jog to the Command tower. They made it to a large boulder and stopped. “This is sliced to slicer how surveillance is over?” Castin whispered into the comm. Unit. “Slicer to Sliced surveillance is set on a ten minute repeater mode get in and get out so I can disengage it without causing trouble with our hosts over” a man on the other side replied probably a GF. “Roger slicer on the way.” Castin said. Castin made a gesture over to Anakin and they continued. They got to the building and Castin began to do his work. “Ok Castin work fast we got guards about one hundred yards and coming our way they may turn they may not hurry.” Anakin said. Castin took out a shovel and dug a hole as quick as he could and then pulled out a bag and started putting two clay-like substances in it with the label HE 5. Castin put the two in the bag and grabbed a wire with two needles and a timer on it and stuck them gently into the bag and into the explosive. “Guards fifty yards out they passed the last door they are coming let’s move.” Anakin said. Suddenly the bag made a whirring sound and then died. “What was that?” Anakin said. Castin made a look of confuse. “Dunno never did that before.” Castin replied. Castin giggled. “Just kidding, just a joke.” He said and a second later was followed with a slap to the back of the head. Castin quickly set the timer for t-5 minutes and buried the explosive and they got out. Fifteen seconds later Castin saw the guards walking by totally oblivious to how close they were walking to the explosive. Castin let out a sigh that explosive could have gone off if stepped on. Castin and Anakin got to the cover area where two E-Web guns were waiting to be loaded and used. They didn’t take their time setting them up on the nearby fallen tree. Anakin and Castin heard a noise behind them and turned around blasters at the ready. As they looked the rest of the insertion team were behind them. “Hey fellas, how are things going for you?” Ecnerwal asked. “We got the charge set for five minutes you guys can go ahead with the operation.” Castin said. Ecnerwal nodded and signaled his men and within seconds they were gone. Castin checked the time and got his weapon rested firmly on his shoulders. Just as expected three groups of troopers came by with the commanders in front and back. “Snipers get ready to take out the command and well get the troopers over.” Anakin said in the comm. Unit. “Roger snipers ready on your mark over.” The sniper said. Anakin waited for a few seconds that seemed like hours. “Commanders in the open, fire for effect NOW.” Anakin said. In a seconds time red laser bolts came out of hiding striking the five commanders with the deadliest of precision. “FIRE CASTIN” Anakin said. Castin aimed the E-Web right into the center of them and fired in a wave. Anakin came to the side of him grabbing his E-Web and opened fire. Already three groups of forty were being dwindled down and the smart ones took cover and returned fire. Scarlet laser bolts flew threw the air and Castin looked at the time. “EXPLOSION AT 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0 FIRE IN THE HOLE.” Castin yelled barely able to hear his own self. Anakin and Castin ducked as the explosive they had set rocked the command center turning it from a solid building to a crater. Suddenly a whole bunch of explosions and fire was being created from the west end. The GF in that area were doing their jobs. Castin looked up and saw two wings of TIE fighters and a wing of bombers. “FLIGHT GROUP FLIGHT GROUP ANTI INFANTRY BOMBERS, CAN YOU TAKE THEM OUT?” Castin yelled. “Roger on way.” A voice that sounded like Gryphon's replied. Castin saw the TIE Bombers turn back around but then laser bolts struck one of them sending it to the ground and making the rest go into evasive but they lasted seconds. Suddenly enemy E-Web cannon got a lock on the two and fired unrelenting scarlet blasts into the surroundings of the two. “Crap where’s that coming from?” Anakin said. Castin shrugged, ducked and put his infrared goggles on and looked around. Suddenly, in a building on the third floor, fourth window, from the right he could see the gunner shooting at him causing him to duck. “Sniper one enemy E-Web pinning us down middle building third fourth window from right do you have a shot, over?” Castin said over the comm. “Negative view obstructed ask sniper two.” Sniper one said. “Sniper Two?” Castin asked. “I see him taking care of problem.” A voice said as a streak of red scorched the sky into the building and the E-Web was gone. “Thanks TWO.” Castin said as he and Anakin continued to fire. “ENEMY MORTAR INCOMMING ALL FORCES DOWN.” Ecnerwal screamed over the comm. Unit. Castin and Anakin ducked and Castin could see enemy mortar fire start pounding the ground “They’re hitting their own men enemy fire is off.” Anakin said. “Yeah he’s probably adjusting, they do…” Castin was cut off when a heavy white object landed on his head, the only thing that kept him alive was his own helmet. “CASTIN!” Anakin said as he grabbed his friend who was in a mild state of shock. Castin blinked his eyes, squinted, cursed then looked at what hit him. “Is that a….storm trooper’s helmet?” Castin said. Anakin grabbed a stick and twisted it around; the helmet was empty but red all around in the inside. Castin and Anakin both looked at it wide eyed until a mortar landed and they went back to firing. “Group one, this is group two, charges set in camp one through five one more to go keep them busy and clear your area were coming through there.” Ecnerwal said. Anakin looked over at Castin. “Sir that is not advisable we have heavy mortar fire in this area I repeat heavy mortar fire.” Anakin said. Suddenly a large explosion rocked the other end of the camp. “Mortar fire ceased we are coming through.” Ecnerwal replied. Anakin and Castin laughed and kept firing. The buildings that held the resistance were not really buildings anymore. Explosions and laser fire had laid waste to them quickly even though they weren’t firing all that much. E-Webs had some nice firepower in them and Castin didn’t really mind the fact that imperials had designed them. “Ok we are coming up lay everything you got on the enemy to the sides and give us cover we are converging on your spot now.” Ecnerwal said. Castin and Anakin turned to their sides and repositioned their guns and fired upon everything that moved. Castin fired on a hovercraft that exploded sending out many troopers, some on fire to the ground. Pretty soon the insertion team came running through the debris of the initial firing area. Just as the last few of the troopers came out stray enemy fire along with mortar fire hit right behind them severely injuring one of the troopers and the others were helpless to rescue him. “MAN DOWN MAN DOWN, MORTARS EVERYWHERE ALONG WITH ENEMY FIRE.” Ecnerwal screamed. Castin looked up and saw the man screaming clutching his leg. Ohh no his leg is broken through the skin and he’s bleeding all over. “Ec I’m going in I got best chances.” Castin said. “ARE YOU NUTS, STAY HERE CASTIN.” Anakin said. “Negative to dangerous, well get him don’t worry.” Castin cringed “WERE COMING STAY STILL.” Castin said. Grabbing his rifle Castin lifted himself up in a pounce position. “Castin, CASTIN.” Anakin said but it was too late. Castin charged out of cover toward the wounded person and almost instantly red bolts were tailing him from behind dirt was hitting him and a rock hit his face in the left check, the ground danced around him and a few blasts flew by him. fire came in front and on the sides. Castin kept running at incredible human speeds and jumped down to the wounded guy right as a mortar hit about fifteen feet behind him. “ARE YOU OK, ARE YOU OK?” Castin asked. “MY LEG.” The man replied. Castin looked down and saw that it wasn’t broken the only thing holding it on was a little bit of skin. Castin took off his combat jacket and wrapped his leg in it and started to drag him out. Crying and moaning in pain the guy with one good leg started helping him. All friendly fire came to a hail and Castin couldn’t remember seeing any enemy lasers but mortars everywhere. Castin dragged him as fast as he could behind a rock and rested for a second then carried him closer to the team. About fifteen feet away another man that looked like steel ran up and aided Castin and the wounded man. They got him behind cover and Steel and Castin hit the ground like a Bantha thrown form a ten-story building. Gasping for air and looking around People were applauding and then he saw Anakin running up to him. “You crazy Hutt butt I ought to slap the sith outa you.” He said as he ducked and dropped Castins equipment bag in Castin lap. “Come on guys we gotta go Castin, Anakin, steel, and I provide cover the rest of you go.” Ecnerwal said. The medics carried the wounded man off the field first while Ecnerwal got a charger from his pocket and prepared it. Ecnerwal pressed a button and five charges went off inside the compound blowing all the camps. “We win again.” Ec said. The four fired down on more storm troopers while the others evacuated and when they were well into the dense trees they backed out. Castin ran with them and stopped and set some charges on the trees and primed an ignition switch and took cover. A moment later he could hear scrambling footsteps of the pursuing enemy. Castin stood up and waved at them “Hey fellas.” He said making them stop. He quickly ducked and set the charges off. He looked back up and there were no troopers left. Castin slung the repeater rifle he had over his shoulder and kept running. He caught up with the other three and they continued until they reached the evacuation shuttle. Getting in Medics were tending to the care of the guy but he was thrashing around violently having a hard time getting him subdued Castin went over and tried holding him down talking gently to him “I’m going to die aren’t I?” The man said in a panicked voice. “No your not gonna die these people are trying to help you sit still so they can get Bacta on your wound your ok you hear me?” Castin said. The medics were struggling cause the man kept kicking at him until subdued and tied down. The man kept struggling and Castin could see blood coming out of his mouth then the kicking got lighter. “Were losing him.” The medic said. “Don’t listen to him your fine alright?” Castin said. But still the kicking resided and he went still. Castin loosened his grip and lifted his upper body up and let go of the body. The man died, lost too much blood by kicking and shaking. Castin looked up at the medics as they put a blanket over him and then to his side where all the men were watching. Castin clenched his fist and slowly got to his seat, and locked himself in and never said a word or moved until they got to the Reckless. Castin couldn’t help thinking that if he didn’t struggle he might still be alive. This was going to be a simple operation but it turned out worst-case scenario. You did your best its not your fault at all. Castin thought to himself and looked down and closed his eyes. Ecnerwal put his hand on Castin's shoulder and patted him.

Chapter Two: Back to the Reckless

“Attention all NRN personnel attending the meeting: you have five minutes or you will not be allowed in.” A woman’s voice said over the comm. unit aboard the ship. Castin had dressed himself up in his Ground Forces LT Commander uniform and shined his boots before walking outside. He could see some people going to the meeting and then saw an old friend of his. “TERKUSS.” Castin shouted. The man swiveled around and smiled. “Castin my boy! How are ya? where ya been? looking good!” Terkuss said. “I’ve been busy with things I'd tell ya but then I’d have to kill ya.” Castin said as he smiled. Terk laughed a little and the two walked down the corridors to the meeting. “We miss ya in flight group man. How’s Ground forces treating you?” Terkuss asked. “It’s been good the food is a lot better too.” Castin said. “It's good if you don’t mind eating dirt with it.” Terk said. “Hey at least I don’t have to catch mine floating in the air.” Castin quickly replied. “Hey that only happened once.” They were referring to the time they had made a dare to put food in a zero gravity chamber and see who could eat it all, the only bad part was Das walked in and turned the grav off making a gravy substance fall on his shoes. No court marshals but the two had to scrape Mynocks off the reckless for two months. They shared a laugh and the door to the meeting slid open. They took their seats, which were side by side and got their Data pads out. Admiral Das came to the speaker booth and saluted. Suddenly in unison the entire staff at the meeting stood up and saluted and then took their seats. “Greetings to everyone here meeting is now started. I have a few announcements about the upcoming tournament SW for our flight division. But that is to come.” Das went on and then came the group leaders and then to ground forces. Hope stood up as Ecnerwal gave him a data pad. “Uhh thank you all. For first business we would like to announce new recruits into the ground forces. Names are not yet available but some of them are in here. Could you please stand up and let yourself be known please?” Hope said. Soon after, seven people stood up. “Let’s salute these guys and wish them all good luck.” Hope said. Everyone stood facing them and gave them a salute and the sat back down. “You can be seated now.” Hope said to the seven. They saluted and took their seats, some of them red faced. “Now, on to bad news. We lost a man a week ago in the field his name was Utar Haglom.” Hope said and was cut off by gasps and murmurs in the audience. “Funeral process will be held in two days. Now for something special, in the attack where he died, a man selflessly risked his life to try to save Utars life. Under heavy fire and mortar explosions he charged without stopping to rescue him and dragged him back to his fellow comrades. An act like this takes very outgoing courage and dedication to your fellow man and going above and beyond any and all calls of duty to help. For this, The New Republic Ground Forces rewards you with the Star of Honor-the greatest reward given to personnel. Castin come up here.” Castin looked surprised and then tried to smile but the memory of Utar dying in front of him killed it. Castin stood straight and walked with precision military style up to the booth. Hope nodded to Castin and pinned his medal, then saluted. Castin saluted and then the entire audience clapped and saluted. Hope stood aside and allowed Castin the right to the booth. Castin really did not want to talk about it but it was tradition. Castin cleared his throat. “Um, well, I wish Utar was still here but unfortunate circumstances prevented that. He served his with the best attitude as any of us and became an unfortunate casualty. We do not really need to call him a casualty as he is not. He is a hero. Biggs Darklighter, Jek Porkins, Lujayne Forge and all the other and will be honored in the same ways. he was a good man who didn’t deserve to die but that should and does go for everyone who has fallen in the war against the Empire but we know he will not have died in vain. Thank you everyone.” Castin saluted Hope one more time and then walked over to his seat. Hope and other admirals talked through the meeting and when it was over, Castin was asked to stay for High Command meeting. This he knew was going to be something, considering no one his rank or position was allowed to go. He remained seated next to Terkuss until it started. “Castin I’ll bet you're wondering why we kept you here.” Das asked while Hope looked at him with a smile. “Uh yes sir I was wondering.” Castin replied. “Our last XO in MAD resigned from his position and we have been discussing it and we want you to take the job.” Hope asked. “Well now, Castin, are you going to take your bright shiny new spot?” Terkuss said without missing a beat. Castin, amazed, was able to let to his first real smile in a week. "Looks like I'm your man sir." Castin said. "Now gentlemen we have business. First of all we need to be briefed about your operation, Castin since your the only one here who was in it looks like you're the man to debrief us." Hope said. Castin took a drink of the Caf the droid brought in for everyone there and pulled out his data pad. "Yes I thought you would ask for it so I made it last night." He paused, waiting for everyone to settle down. "Last week as you all know, ground forces and air forces destroyed an imperial training base in Ambria. Six ground force troopers and six Wraith squadron personnel were in the attack. I, along with Anakin, were charged with setting a satchel charge in a shield generator cleverly disguised as a command center. After we set the charge, we rendezvoused with the rest of the group and we were left to operate two E-Web guns on Imperial storm troopers doing their daily drill. Once the explosion commenced, we poured everything we had on the troops along with sniper support taking out a good number of the enemy but we estimate over one hundred ninety of them left alive. Mind you, we were facing over five hundred so that number isn’t quite so bad, but I think we could have done better. Injury reports one fatality, two concussions and a Wraith squadron pilot sprained his ankle on the ladder getting down from his craft but is all right. The assault took forty five minutes from beginning to end and besides the casualty it went smoothly like planned.” Castin finished up and sipped a cup of his Caf. “Well done Castin. Now Ecnerwal we have been finding things like this all around the galaxy including prisoner camps as old as the battle of Yavin. Just recently intelligence has unearthed something I think you should take a look at.” Das flicked a switch on the holo projector and a planet came up. “This is Ossus, a remote almost unforgotten planet that has had good enough activity to attract our attention. We sent a recon droid to take a look at activities in that area and found this. ”. The holo projector made an image of a camp but then it became obvious that it wasn’t just any camp. “This is a prisoner camp that we estimated has been there since Hoth. The droid took a closer look and got into the compound and out counting the number of prisoners to well over seven hundred.” Das said. Terkuss, Ecnerwal, and Castin dropped their jaws at that number. “Which is why I am tasking your man Krakaboo along with Castin is to take Blood angels, and MAD to get in, get the POW’s and get out and let us perform Aerial bombardment of the base. This will be effective in a few hours. Inform all your men Castin, I’m not going to be able to go. Under any other circumstances I would, but I, along with all admiralty are going to Coruscant for a week to debate top secret issues.” Das finished up. “No problem, sir. Take it easy and if you can, get some Coruscant bourbon for me.” Castin said as Terkuss nudged him with his elbow. “Uhh and Terkuss too.” Castin finished up. Terkuss looked at Das and smiled. Castin turned his head to his friend LongShot and spoke. “Methinks Terk has a screw loose LS.” Castin said giggling a little. “Trust me, Castin I’ve lived with him for a while he DOES have a screw loose.” LongShot replied smiling as Terkuss looked over to Castin. “Not just one, buddy.” Terk said. “Gentlemen, any question? No? Dismissed.” Das said. Everyone saluted and walked out the door. “Castin, ASAP inform everyone in MAD what’s going to happen, I’ll do the same for Blood Angels. Get every man in your group that can make it, prepare and remain on standby and get their gear packed and ready no alcohol or anything of any kind, standard procedure. Welcome to the GF Command, Since Wild Card is on leave, you will be temporary CO until his return got that?” Ecnerwal said. Castin saluted. “Yes sir, I’ll have MAD in tip top shape in a matter of hours.” He said. Castin proceeded to the crew quarters where MAD and Blood Angels and probably many more GF were lounging about, having fun and some were drinking. Castin went up to Raslan about to take a shot of Corellian ale and took the shot away and stood on the counter. “Hey Castin, what the hell?” Raslan said confused. Castin, as soon as he got up on the table, addressed the crowd. “MAD squadron Personnel minus Das and Sienar are to report to ready room for briefing, no more drinks.” Castin said as he drank Raslans shot and jumped down from the table. Everyone in MAD started leaving and then a young man approached Castin and Saluted. “Sir I am cadet Gladin Halo Newly assigned to MAD.” The kid said. “Welcome aboard Gladin, I’m temporary CO Castin Tainer. Our CO is on leave traveling to his sick uncle.” Castin said. “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that, sir I’m afraid I have no idea where the ready room is.” The kid asked. Castin smiled. "I'm heading there with my squad. Come on tag along Gladin." Gladin ran right behind Castin until they reached their destination. Inside was an arsenal of almost every rifle and ground gear known to man and non-human alike. Gladins jaw dropped open the second he saw it, the room was absolutely huge. Walking over he grabbed a Class Two backpack like all the others did and examined it to see if all the equipment was there. The contents of a Class Two backpack was night vision goggles, a vibroblade, gloves, 2 days supply of foodstuffs and water, a datapad with a compass unit attached, a holdout blaster, a camouflage cover and other small things. After he checked the bag he put it on and went to the bandoliers where Castin and Longshot were talking and filling up the bandoliers with ammo packs. Castin, had two he was using to put in repeater ammunition and Longshot was doing the same with his stormtrooper rifle equipped with a scope for sniper support. Grabbing one of the bandoliers, Gladin was stopped by LongShot. "What weapons are you going to use, kid?" LongShot asked. Gladin stopped and shrugged. "I thought any bandolier worked for holding ammo sir.” He said. LongShot grinned and spoke "First of all, don't call me sir. Its LongShot, pleasure to meet you. Now grab your designated weapon if you dont know what that is go to the tech droid right over there." LongShot said. Gladin looked over to the droid, nodded at LongShot and walked to the droid. "Kids full of pep alright." Castin said jokingly. "Yeah I think we all did the same our first mission." Longshot replied. Castin snapped the final ammo pack to his last bandolier and put them on his waist and one over his right shoulder. "That’s true I'll admit my first op wasn’t the most precision accurate fight I’ve ever had" Castin said. The two walked over to the weaponry and loaded up, one stormtrooper rifle, a blastech 44 and thermal detonators for LongShot and a repeater carbine, blastech 44, thermal detonators and a “Demomans Special" side pack for Castin. The "Demomans Special" was slang for a variety of explosive charges and triggers in a bag. The one he grabbed was small since this wasn’t a demolitions mission and he really didn’t want to blow up any buildings with POW's in it. Suddenly the two heard a loud voice of a man. "ADMIRAL ON DECK." Gladin said aloud. Everyone looked at Gladin amusingly and then stood at attention. "At ease troopers, ok listen up for those of you wondering why wer'e putting you in all this here’s why. We have found an Imperial prisoner of war camp. Now this isn't any POW-camp this has been around for probably as long as the empire. You will not be told what planet this is until debriefing to keep security safe. Once you get in you will rescue the hostages and get them to the evacuation shuttles. You will be going in on two Lambda shuttles and a dropship big enough to carry the POW's will be at your rendezvous point in space." Das said. Hope walked in front of him and began his speech. "Now remember guys a lot of these people probably dont even know that we have blown up two Death Stars, and crushed the Imperials into small bits. So try not to alarm them to much and dont blast the first thing you see. As soon as you and the POW's are safe we will land the evac shuttles and get you out understood." Hope asked and was soon answered by everyone in the room. "Now you will not be dropped instead we will shoot a grapple down and you will slide down and proceed and when you get the hostages you will call upon the evac ship to drop." Hope looked at them all and smiled. "What a hell of a job this is." He said. Without hesitation some smiled and sang the song they usually did before an operation. glory glory what a hell of a job this is, glory glory what a HELL OF A JOB THIS IS, glory glory let us praise the nrn, for we shall be ever strong. Krakaboo sang it while he made final preparations on his gear and ordered his group to do the same. Pretty soon the singing went down and they marched single file to the shuttles.

Chapter 3: The Making of Heroes

Twenty troopers in two lines of ten marched in unison into the landing crafts. Castin leading one line Krakaboo leading the other. As Castin was marching he couldn't help but notice all the different ranks above his. Man these people are all ordered to follow Krakaboos and my orders. Dont get distracted and you will do fine and so will they. "Board dropship ONE group one." Castin said as he waved his hands. "Board dropship TWO group Two." Krakaboo said. The two gave each other a glance and then saluted each other. Everyone except the CO's Castin and Kraka sat down and got themselves secure while the two men secured all of their mates. The new recruit was panting heavily and was shaking and Castin had forgotten this was his first engagement. Castin secured Raslan and gave him a mock salute and walked over to Gadlin. "Gadlin are you ok? You look a little bit shook up." Castin asked. Breathing heavily Gadlin looked up and spoke. "Sir I dont think I ever have been this scared in my life." Gadlin replied. Castin grinned lightly and patted the mans shoulders. "It's ok to be scared were all scared but just think clearly keep your eyes peeled and head down and you will do fine." Castin said as he locked Gadlin into position and nudged his rifle a little farther out behind his back. "I did that two my first few jumps." Castin said. "Thank you sir." Gadlin said. Castin smiled at the young ma and stood straight and saluted him. Castin took a seat right next to Raslan and Durrron and a tech came to secure him into position but Castin was not locked in all the way just like all COs do. Once he sat down he remembered his first drop. The rescue on Chandrilla the same missions where he was accepted into Freedom Squadron. He could see the faces of the men and women who came in and did the job, some came out but others didn't.

In Krakaboos dropship he had done the same thing helping everyone get tied down and ready for liftoff. Taking his seat HardTarget next to him spoke up. "Hey Krakaboo what about our motivational speech?" HT said jokingly. Krakaboo stood up and spoke. "Well everyone just be on the lookout, dont blast the first thing that moves and be smart and you’ll be seeing home again." he said. "He he quite the motivational speaker aren’t ya boss?" g0thic said jokingly. "Someone slap him in the back of the head." Krakaboo said as he turned around to face the other end. A thud was heard and Krakaboo smiled. "Thanks, now everyone this shouldn’t be hard at all just be there for each other and help the POW's all you can." Krakaboo said as he saluted. Everyone saluted him and he took his seat and keyed the comm. unit on the wall. "Were ready craft one and two lift off to the system." Kraka said. "Roger evac ship is now entering hyperspace. It should be a four hour journey so get comfortable." A voice on the other end replied. Suddenly a jolt made everyone shake and it was silent for a few seconds. That was an indication to them they were going on a four hour ride before they arrived. Some of them slept others told jokes and the rest of them were applying camouflage paint on their faces. Krakaboo just sat there the whole time in a deep trance of thoughts. He had felt kind of guilty because he didn’t leave a message to the fleet to send to his parents if he died and if he did how would they know what happened? And the fact that he knew he had got everything and checked his gear four times he still felt like he was missing something. No that’s nonsense man you got everything you just got the jitters. The rest of the flight went quick. Kraka talked about things with the people next to him they shot the breeze, told Myknock jokes and even got some rest. Hours past before anything over the Comm was spoken. "Attention GF troopers in t minus one minute and thirty seconds we will go into hover mode, shoot down cables and let you grapples to the surface. And we will liftoff to orbit." The guy said. "Ok GROUP TWO GET READY." Krakaboo said as he flipped the switch to let everyone loose. They got final check on their equipment and lined up behind Kraka. Suddenly the doors on the shuttles opened up and ten cables fired burying themselves into the ground below. Kraka looked over and saw group one led by Castin already beginning their descent. "Ok groups two on my mark get attached now." He ordered. One by one they hooked themselves up and got ready. The light next to Kraka went green and Kraka lifted his arm and raised it and lowered it twice. One by one they jumped until they were down onto the planet surface.

Castins group had landed safely and their ship was already going out to orbit. Castin made a few motions with his arms and the groups split up and secured the perimeter for group two. Casting keyed his comm. "Ok flight two givem the green light area secure." He said softly. "Roger green light engaged you got company coming down." The pilot said. Castin looked up right as the last cable was shot into the ground and then he saw them jumping all at once. Castin while ducking ran over to where Krakaboo was gonna land and waited till he was down. "How was the landing pal?" Castin asked. "A little to fast for me but were down." Kraka said. "You have the tactical map right Kraka?" Castin asked. Kraka pulled out his datapad that had the map already on it. "Ok that dot right there is us and that blue blob is our appointed destination. This camp is bigger then I planned, so what we will do it we will take our two teams and do recon over the area and gather Intel and then at night we will strike." Castin said. "You’re the boss Castin right before I left I got an update that I couldn't send to you. You're now MAD's CO.” Kraka said with a smile. Castin wide eyed took a deep breath and inhaled slowly and let out a small laugh. “Well I guess that is news. Ok get your men assembled were going now. We have a few klicks to walk until were there, you can talk but not very much try to limit yourselves.” Castin said. Ten minutes later they were walking in a tight group weapons ready but not at shoulder, except for Gladin who had his rifle at the ready. Hard target saw him and walked over to him and tapped his shoulder. “Your about as nervous as a Mynocks kid, its alright you can lower you gun nothings gonna happen the enemy is more than likely not going to have any patrols along this far out.” Hard target said. Gladin looked at him and to his front ignoring the statement about him being as nervous as a Mynock but he did have to agree that chances were that there was no reason to be so nervous and they probably wouldn’t see anything for a while. Castin smirked at Gladin as Longshot came over to him. “Hey Cas I hear your CO of MAD now that true.” LS asked. Still new to the idea of him being a CO it took him a while to respond. “Yeah I’m CO I guess.” Castin replied. LS smirked “May the force save us all.” LS replied as he pulled two Coruscant cigars from his pouch and handed one to Castin. Although they couldn’t light it, the cigars gave off a wonderful taste and were one of the few things like that, which wasn’t harmful to your health. “Ahh reminds me of home sweet home.” Castin said. LS and Castin looked to the side and saw Krakaboo running at them. “Enemy TIE fighters.” Kraka said. Castin whistled and raised his hand and lowered it in a spread formation. As soon as everyone saw that they took off into brushes and trees to take cover. Castin and LS hid under a log and were able to see two squadrons of TIE fighters buzz by. It was over just as fast as it began and everyone lay there until Castin got back up and made a motion for everyone else too. “Do you think their scanners picked us up?” Kraka said. LS checked to see if anything was laying where he hit the floor and back up to him. “More than likely not, were twenty people in a forest with probably well over twenty thousand creatures minimum on it were just a small blip in an ocean of them.” LS replied. Castin took the cigar and put it in his pocket and started up the shield around it so that it wouldn’t get crushed and motioned everyone forward. Everyone came up and kneeled in a small circle around him. “Ok were probably close to the camp so here’s the plan group A with five people Anakin, Gladin, LongShot, Hard Target and myself are going to get close to the compound and get the location of the camps where the prisoners are being held. While the rest of you provide cover should we need happen to need it. Now don’t fire at the first thing only if your lives come into jeopardy or ours. Any questions? No? Good now get to a well-covered area but be sure to have a good view of everything you can especially us, now lets go.

It took twenty minutes but they reached the compound. This was a huge compound bigger than anyone expected. Some military units were stationed there that was no surprise to Castin but what had bothered him was the TIE fighters they had all seen. I don’t see any air pads this isn’t right something is very wrong. Castin glanced over behind him and waved his hand towards him and four people emerged and came to him. “Ok people get in download schematics and get out now don’t attack unless provoked. If so try using Vibroblades to take down your prey ok now follow me and keep your head down.” They all formed up behind Castin and made their way to the fence guarding them. The fence was a shield that wasn’t an entire dome but just a ten foot tall wall that encircled the compound. As they approached Castin pulled out a small EMP device. Although it’s puny size it could knock out a force field for ten seconds allowing small objects such as blaster fire, grenades, people through the field. Castin attached the thing to the shield and put on a pair of goggles that allowed him to see the EMP take effect on the shield. This was very important because some shields could cut an unsuspecting person in half if it closed around him. Once the EMP was attached and detonated they had twenty seconds to get through before the field shut itself and it was such a small hole it would not report being hit or anything and if it did it usually made it took like a common thing. As they rushed in towards the compound they stopped at a comm. Center relay station and Long Shot and Anakin got their stuff ready to download data about the area. Castin opened the door slowly and equipped his vibroblade just incase he saw anything. Long Shot walked over to a door and was about to open it until a storm trooper came through. Long Shot lunged at him and buried his vibroblade into the mans neck and pulled it away from him. The trooper tried to kick away and scream but all he could make out was a drowned scream and he fell to the floor. Castin and Gladin busted through the door guns drawn and spotted three other troopers. “DROP YOUR WEAPONS AND GET ON THE GROUND NOW.” Castin yelled. Scared, two of the troopers slung their weapons to the ground and went to the floor putting their hands behind their heads but the third didn’t do the same. Castin looked over in time to see the third man pick up a woman in dirty loose clothes and put a blaster to her head. “DROP YOUR WEAPON YOUR OUTNUMBERED.” Castin said. The trooper let out a laugh. “I’ll kill her I’LL KILL HER.” He said. Castin raised his weapon to the mans head. “Last chance pal you don’t want to try me.” Castin said. The trooper laughed and aimed the blaster at Castin and it was the last mistake he ever made. The girl took advantage of this and stomped on the mans foot and hit him in the chest and dove away. Without hesitation Castin put one blast into the trooper’s neck area where it was less guarded. The man jolted and hit the floor in less than a second. The woman cowered at a corner and started to cry. Castin realized she probably never has seen anything like that and her life came into jeopardy. Castin walked to the lady and offered his hand. She was about his height of six foot tall and had blond hair and green eyes the clothes she was wearing were that of prison garbs that were stained with mud, blood of different colors and more. The lady saw him reaching for her and backed up and covered her head with her hands. Castin withdrew his hand “Ma’am? I am Castin Tainer of the New Republic Navy Ground Forces; we are here to rescue you and the other prisoners.” He said. The woman looked up and smiled. “You are here to rescue us?” she asked and Castin nodded his head and smiled. Slowly the woman extended her hand and smiled to. “May I Ask your name?” Castin asked. The woman smiled and wiped the last tear away. “Kaci Lightchaser, from Coruscant.” She said. Castin noticed she was in good health and she did not have any noticeable wounds but asked anyway. “Kaci are you hurt? Do you need any help?” Castin asked. Kaci shook her head. No actually they just caught me trying to escape.” She said with a defiant smile on her head. Suddenly Long Shot interrupted. “Castin this is not good come take a look at this.” He said. Castin stood up and went over to Long shot where he had just hacked into the system. As he took a look he noticed Long Shot was white as a ghost. “They just destroyed our way out and to make matters worse we just received company. I’m counting two super star destroyers; five give or take many more star destroyers, several frigates and an interdictor cruiser. One of the supers just started landing troops and other various AT units down ETA five minutes. My guess is it’s an invasion force, not for here but where I have no clue.” Long Shot said. Castin was about to reply when Gladin busted through the door in a slight panic. “Castin we have troopers moving in to our position my guess is they heard your shot.” Gladin said. “Well this is not good ok everyone fall back fire at will. Kaci can you fire a weapon? And you Gladin tie up these troopers NOW.” Castin said. Kaci said she could fire a gun so Anakin picked up a storm trooper rifle and handed it to her. “It’s ready to fire ma’am so be ready.” Anakin said. Gladin got up from tying the people up and the got ready to leave.

From the cover of the bushes everything seemed fine from where they were. Group one had just infiltrated their first building and for a few seconds it was all quiet. Suddenly he saw a flash in the rear window. Ok something just went wrong this was supposed to be a simple recon mission and even though its one shot it still can jeopardize them. “Krakaboo to Anakin are you all ok?” Kraka said over his comm. It took a second for him to reply. “Yeah were good here suspect neutralized all is ok.” Anakin said. “Ok copy.” Kraka said. The building next to the comm. Relay station’s doors opened up and fifteen armored stormies came walking out toward the building. Kraka made motions for everyone to get ready but not to fire until his mark. Suddenly a loud whooshing noise came from behind and then Kraka saw Raslan along with G0thic move to engage a convoy craft approaching. One blaster went off and all was silent until G0thic came running to Kraka. “Sir we just secured an arms convoy along with foodstuffs, weapons, ammo and grenades.” G0thic said. Kraka glimpsed and saw the stormies coming closer and then his comm. Unit cam alive “Kraka this is Anakin our only way out has been destroyed and a major invasion force is coming down reason: unknown get your men ready to fall back but wait for us over.” Anakin said. Kraka could not believe what he just heard. Kraka made a few motions for everyone to get ready to leave in a hurry and provide cover for the rest of the team down below. Blasters at the ready aimed at the stormies they were ready to strike with precision accuracy but something from the sky distracted Kraka. As he looked up he saw many air transports for large AT units such as AT-AT and AT-ST alike and a few that could hold many troopers. “Anakin we got reinforcements about to land right on you get out now.” Kraka said. Almost as soon as he said that the door slid open and six figures slowly came out and were spotted by the stormies. “OPEN FIRE.” Kraka said to his team. They didn’t hesitate before two E-Web guns came down on the stormies. “ALL EXCEPT THE E-WEB GUNNERS PULL OUT TO PRIMARY RENDEVOUS POINT NOW.” Kraka yelled. Everyone except the two gunners and Kraka stayed. Kraka armed his Bow-Caster and shot a storm trooper on a roof killing him instantly. After he glanced he could see five figures running to the shield. The man in front threw a small device at the shield that blocked their way out and dive underneath and they all did the same but one had to get help. Another stayed behind shooting gold waves at the stormies offering backup to his mates. That’s gotta be Castin there. He thought to himself as he concentrated three round bursts into the crowd. A few green blasts later from his Bow-Caster he could see Castin running at top speed and dive, tuck, and roll and ran up to the point where they were meeting. Kraka looked up to see a wing of TIE fighters zeroing down on them. One of the E-Web gunners aimed up and opened fire on the lead TIE. One shot hit the left wing of the fighter and the next hit right into the ball. Although the E-Web was not the perfect TIE weapon a few well placed hits made the inner ball of the TIE explode in a fireball inside the cockpit killing the pilot instantly. "FALL BACK EVERYONE LETS GO MOVE OUT GO GO GO." Castin yelled. The Gunners Raslan and Ace0 started to fall back just as a few blaster bolts came streaking into the logs covering them. Castin jumped, ducked and rolled behind the log and returned fire spraying gold waves of death at his enemy. he saw a few go to the ground and others take cover. Castin stood and started running towards LongShot, Anakin and Kaci and caught up with them in no time. Kaci was panting hard along with everyone but was still able to keep up. Fear struck her eyes as she saw more cargo being delivered to the world and as TIE fighters along with bombers circled above. "Just keep in the trees they wont see us and I dont think they are desperate enough to bomb us yet." Anakin said. Kaci heard what he had said but was to busy to show much emotion. Pretty soon they came around a large rock where all the party was gathered beside a large grav sled that had some crates on them. "Ok you guys we got a plan theres a large cave about fifteen clicks away and this thing is fast enough to carry us all there in an hour which beats walking we also got foodstuff and blaster carbines and ammunition not to mention concussion grenades and a few imp anti vehicle rail guns." Kraka said. Castin took a look at it and let out a very small smile. "Well I'll be damned looks like we get an advantage afterall." Castin said. "Ok E-Web gunners one to the front and one to the back everyone try to get a good position where you can see and fire just as easily." Castin ordered. They all got on and found a good spot to sit and watch for the enemy and the E-Web's got setup on crates. The grav sled kicked off and they were on the move to the caves. Castin looked to everyone who was with him. He could see the ranks of everyone of them, some where lower and some where higher than his and to him it felt kind of odd to be ordering generals commanders and all the such even an admiral around but it was his responsibility to keep them alive and no matter what he thought he had to act with the squad and not be the squad himself.

Aboard The Reckless. "ATTENTION PERSONEL WE NEED ADMIRAL DAS AND CAPTAIN HOPE COME TO THE TECH ROOM IMMEDIATELY CODE RED." A voice said over the comm. Unit in the flagship and pride of the NRN the Reckless. The two met simultaneously and exchanged glances as a Twilek male came to greet them. "It's about our mission in Ossus. We might be comprimised. The Twilek said. the two exchanged glances of worry to eah other and hen turned to the man. "Tell us more now what happened." Hope said. The Twilek nodded and spoke. "I think the transmission we recieved will help and answer as many questions as possible." As they walked in two others were getting everything ready and then snapped to attention. "Sirs we recieved this about an hour ago it was a distress call from our evac ships." The man said as he flipped a switch that brought up a man in dire panic.

"This is evac shuttle we are comprimised I repeat two super star destroyers, numerous star destroyers and gunships along with an interdictor cruiser just jumped in sytem. They are dropping supplies of sorts to the planet below and we just started taking fire. We lost both troop shuttles and were about get it pleas send h............."

The message was cut off indicating the ship was probably destroyed or disabled. Das's heart immediately sank to his feet and hope dropped the cup of Caf he was sipping and cursed at himself for doing so. "We have an emergency tell all pilots to go to the breifing chamber and I mean every single one. The ones that can't fit into there will be put in the meetingroom and will be briefed about what has happened. signal all NRN warships to coem to our coordinates obviosly this is an invasion force taking a pit stop we have got to tell them troopers down there to try to make a nig enough nuissance to keep them there." Das said. The Twilek saluted and ran to the comm area and the other two went off in other directions. "May the force be with us all." Hope said.

Chapter four: Interlopers.

Aboard the Super Star Destroyer Mantis Admiral Gramal sat patiently in his command seat. The man sat with an eerie presence and a stern look on his face. The man was a tall thin man with a black mustache and a baldhead. The man worked out regularly and thus was a very built kind of man and just being stared at by him would intimidate the average man. His blue eyes were like that of ice crystals on Hoth and his personality was just about the same. Gramal had served with the imperials since right around the time when the first death star had blown but he was a TIE fighter pilot in another part of the galaxy when that had happened. Thus over the years his keen intelligence and ruthlessness earned his first command position and he kept going up in the ranks. One of his best and most heard of accomplishments is when he had ordered fifteen TIE interceptor pilots to storm a city absolutely covered with air to air and he said if they failed not only would he have their families killed but everyone else in that wing. The squints took over the town with only one loss thus creating urban legends about him and his ferocity. As he took a small sip of his stim tea he ran over a checklist of all the ships that were in his command. Four lancer frigates, one interdictor cruiser, five star destroyers imperial class, and two super star destroyers plus ten thousand storm troopers and one thousand AT class war machines on the ground only seven hundred operators on the ground, and over seventy TIE squadrons everything is going as planned Gramal thought to himself. The only thing that chewed at him was where did those rebel shuttles come from and what were they doing near this planet. Two of them could carry other personnel and the biggest one could fit over a thousand people. Then it hit Gramal like a ton of bricks “They were going to try rescuing the prisoners and we were lucky enough to catch them.” He spoke to himself. A younger man walked up to the admiral and saluted. Sir the way we hit the rebel shuttles gave us only an indication that there was a crew of five each aboard the shuttles from some distress calls we picked up but no signs of other crew or equipment cannot be found sir.” The man spoke. “The admiral made an evil grin that made the younger man shutter. “And you don’t think that the casualties we already have suffered make an indication that there is life on the planet?” The admiral asked. Confused the man spoke. “W…what are you talking about sir?” The man asked. Angrily the admiral spoke. “There was a shooting that resulted in the death of forty troopers. A few died when a grav sled hauling supplies came under attack and the rest came when a group of five along with a prisoner who recently tried to escape DID escape.” Gramal said. The younger man thought for a while and then spoke. “I can go planet side sir and oversee the destruction of our unwanted guests sir.” He spoke. “Very well Mecc I assume you also want to try your Sith abilities out as well?” The admiral asked. Mecc looked up with a smile. “I do sir.” Mecc said with an evil smile on his face. “IGF command troopers are going down in a half an hour better grab what you need. Now GO.” The admiral said. The boy is good with the way of the dark side but his arrogance is not something I like and it will get him killed by either my hands or the rebels. Keying the comm. Gramal wiped off all emotions from his face as the ground commander came into view. “Sir you wanted to speak to me?” The commander asked. “How is the situation on the planet commander Eklin?” The admiral asked. “We suffered a few losses and we haven’t got a clue where they are at but we will fin them. I also took eight thousand troopers back up to the other super star destroyer because I found the need for them on the planet useless.” Eklin said. The admiral made a stern look. “Now spare me the other nonsense and contact me when they are destroyed they have made a mockery of you and I and I see it humiliating that they made it out with no loss.” Gramal said. The commander saluted. “We have three platoons of fifty men each searching the planet and will find them soon.” Eklin said. “Very good dismissed.” The admiral said. The view screen disappeared and Eklin was alone in his office again. The Commander sat down in his seat and rubbed his face.

Castin and the rest made it to the caves with no trouble and they ditched the grav sled over a nearby cliff. The planet had many cliff faces and was also very dense in jungle vegetation which could make hiding easy. Back at the caves they had all gotten their gear set and rested for a while and thought about what just happened and what they were gonna do.

“So our only escape has been destroyed and presuming they sent a distress call, the NRN fleet wouldn’t get here for days probably weeks and who knows if they know that up above us is a fleet big enough to overrun a planet.” TheFish said while playing with a stick. “That’s just about the story Fish.” Castin said. “Ohh yeah like we have a choice other than sit here doing nothing? There’s thousands of them and how many? Ohh yes twenty of us.” Fish replied. Castin in any other case would have told him to step down but he knew the severity of it as well as Fish did. “Were a small fast moving group that can hit hard and get out before they know what happens. And we just have received an update eight thousand of the troops and about three fourths of the AT units are back up in space that means our survivability has increased quite a bit.” Anakin said. “So what are we gonna do go in guns blazing towards two thousand imps and AT units?” Fish asked. Castin scratched his head and shook it. “No we separate the forces and make them weaker. On your map Kraka I saw a few roads, Kaci do you know what they use them for?” Castin asked. Kaci looked up and yawned. “They use that for transport of equipment and soldiers between facilities.” She said. Everyone looked up at her and could not believe what she had just said. “There’s more facilities?" Castin asked. "Yes three that I know of two communications arrays and one military building." Lindsey said. Castin paced for a few seconds scratching his head. "A big salute goes out to the NRN intel division ladies and gentalment." Castin said in the highest extent in sarcasm. "We plant bugs in one of the arrays and attack the military building." Castin said. LongShot looked up. "Castin I'm sorry I don’t follow you." He said. Castin smiled and kneeled down. "If we plant spy equipment into their communications we can know what they do when they do it giving us a great advantage. After that we figure out how to strike and destroy as much of the military compound as possible." Castin said. "He does have a point gaining some good Intel would give us a better chance on survival and we would know how many we are facing at the complex." Ion said. Castin always knew Ion to be the kind of person to look at both ends so he prepared himself for the other side of things. "Of course how do we plan to attack? They might have shield generators. And one more critical problem.....we have no spy or any gear like that" Ion said. Kaci shook her head. "The arrays don’t have shield cover but the military base has a shield generator to the south about three fourths of a mile away from the base. Hit that and their shields go down and you can attack." She said. Castin spoke up after her. "And some of us went through our new property and found some buttons." Buttons were Intel terms on an imperial device that could be put in the back of any type of transmitting device and give the host unlimited access in the activities. each bunch of buttons came with intel gear. "Well then first things first we get a two man team to bug the outpost. Now the trick of it is that we cannot have any casualties but I'm guessing its not all that heavily defended." Castin said. "True kill any of them and they will notice and were blown." Fish said. Kaci spoke up. "I just want to know if it makes any difference on which one we bug." LongShot asked. Kaci shook her head. "No there both the same they have two just incase one is disabled." She said. Castin grabbed his pack and stood up. “Ok guys we have got a busy day ahead of us Fish and LongShot you are in charge of planting the bug as soon as you do that we will all rendezvous near the military compound where G0thic and I will set a charge to destroy the shield generator. I’ll set it for a 10 minute charge giving us some time to get back and ready. If the shield goes before we get there don’t waste time on us just attack and hit everything as hard as you can but more than likely resistance will be low. I want ten people to be carrying the rail detonators we just captured for buildings and possible AT units more than likely all they will have is AT-ST and AT-PT units inside a large storing facility. Hit that and are chances of going home are greater. We also have an advantage of it being night for a few more hours so lets use that. Any questions? No ok then lets move.” Castin said. They all got up and equipped their stuff and got necessary supplies. LongShot and Fish gave their weapons to Kaci and HardTarget for safe keeping. The two armed only with vibro blades moved towards the area with three others and it took an hour to get there. LongShot equipped his infrared goggles and put them to no wall mode so he could see all troopers in a large radius. “Fish guards three of them on the other side no other personnel in the array room center lets move.” LongShot said. Gladin stayed behind along with Anakin and Castin standing guard. Gladin put on his goggles just like everyone else and watched the compound area, “Si…uh I mean Castin three other stormies to the north.” “Got it keep an eye on them.”

LongShot couldn’t believe this. In his career as a sniper and getting the callsign “LongShot” he was here bugging equipment. LongShot brought out a kit that opened the door and slowly he opened it taking a look. “The guards inside here must be on a break or something but keep an eye out.” LongShot whispered to Fish. “Got it.” Fish replied. The comm. Unit in his pocket started to vibrate so he answered it. “Fish here what’s going on?” Fish asked. “Fish hurry up three officers are moving your way get in and get out the sun is now starting to come out and you will be vulnerable again so hurry.” Castin said. “Got it LS is going steady should be done in a few seconds.” He said. LS nodded his head and stood up. “Castin where they at were coming out.” Fish said. “Don’t move find a cover NOW.” Castin said in a panic. Fish and LS didn’t waste a second and LS dove into a room with a deactivated droid in it then LS noticed that the room had no door so he crammed himself into the corner. Fish hid under a table that had a slant overhang on it covering his small body quite nicely. Three stormies stepped into the room and took out illuminators that made the room shine just as brightly as the sun and walked to the table to check some data cards on the table. Fish’s heart started beating as fast as it possibly could until the clanking feet walked away and he let out a silent and slow sigh and wiped the sweat off his face.

LongShot could hear the clambering of six feet come his way and he knew that they were going to inspect the room. Frantically LS looked around and found an open vent next to him big enough to hide in so he jumped in and ducked. After a few seconds he could see the glow lamps almost over him and just like Fish his heart started to pound out of his chest then he heard a stormie acknowledge something and the light faded. Seconds dripped into hours and then fish came into the room whispering for his LS. “I’m down here.” LS said as he slowly stood up. Fish helped him out and then keyed his comm. “Castin all clear?” he asked. “Roger, go now.” Castin replied. Fish and LS opened the door and at a crouch ran back to the others and kneeled beside them “Ok bug planted were on schedule so far.” LS said. “Yeah lets go another hour until we get to the shield generator.

Aboard the Reckless the New Republic Navy Capital ship, Hope and Ecnerwal along with every other admiral besides were discussing the matters at hand. “So they have Four lancer frigates, one interdictor cruiser, five star destroyers imperial class, and two super star destroyers. Plus ten thousand storm troopers but only two thousand on the ground and one thousand AT class war machines on the ground. The good part is that only seven hundred of the operators on the ground, and over seventy TIE squadrons in the destroyers. Gentlemen we have a crisis here. If we go to rescue these people which we WILL this will not be any picnic.” Das said. Hope stood up and spoke. “Admiral although I do agree I have run an analysis of the planet and low and behold they have ion turrets as well so if we go in were going to be at the merci of the ions turrets and…” Hope was cut off when a droid came in and demanded to speak with Das. Das leaned forward and his expressionless face turned into surprise. “Ground forces are still alive and have made a strike at the imps down there.” Das said. Everyone started talking and praising but all were glad that they were ok. “What did they strike against?” Ecnerwal asked. Das made a look of confuse. “For some reason they hit a military compound holding a good part of the AT units and if the droid isn’t mistaken the battle is still waging. The funny thing is that they totally missed the radar and communications arrays.” Das finished up. Hope scratched his chin. They attack a military and strategic compound without hitting their communication so they cant send for… “They’re playing war games admiral.” Hope said. The admiral along with everyone else went silent and looked at him confused. “Say again Captain? War games?” Das said. “Yes sir here’s what they are doing. They just hit a strategic are for the imps but they didn’t take out their communications.” Hope said. “Well how do we know if they knew they even existed?” Das asked. “Good question but my theory is that they wanted to hit that area hard to send troopers from point A to point B...Can't you see? They are going to stress the units out as far as they can so they might be able to strike at the main facility. If they take control of the facility they can turn the air turrets, ground turrets, and ion turrets especially." Hope finished up. Das took a drink of his tea and spoke with interest. "I see your point very clearly Hope but now we need to find a way to communicate with them." He said. "We could get a small craft like an A-Wing into the area, skim the planet surface with radio signals and get out an A-Wing alone could outrun much of what they have including AA turrets and that interdictor cruiser and escape from the far end of the planet." Ecnerwal said accidentally interupting all of the admirals. Everyone looked over at him making Ecnerwal go red and embarrased. Terkuss looked at him and smiled in a sarcastic way. "And who would be crazy enough to do a suicidal stunt like this? It's for a lack of a better word impossible and all to risky." Terkuss said. Ecnerwal smiled. "I am a Rogue and my job is to do the impossible I volonteer to send a craft in, send radio frequences on all nrn commlinks on that planet and get out." Ecnerwal said. Das smiled. "Your tenacity amazes me Ecnerwal. We will modify an A-Wing to make it faster and have a class five comm chanel on it. Now people the rest of the ships are going to come in the next three days. Ecnerwal will leave in twenty four hours in time for our best techs to make the craft that you can pilot. May the force be with us and those on the ground.

Castin and the group got to the shield generator and got ready to attack. all they had to do was run in there kill anything that resists and once the bomb was planted detonate it from a safe place and rendevous with the group for the attack. Castin put the Demomans special on his back and suited up. "Ok I run in first. the second you hear a shot come in after got it?" he said. they all nodded and LS got his scope and sniper accessories off his carbine and got ready. Castin took a canister labeled "Smoke", flipped a switch then threw it and almost instantly about fifty yards away the area clouded up. Castin took at a full run with blaster at the ready and charged through the smoke up to a small hill where a storm trooper was investigating the happenings. The trooper took a crack shot at Castin that missed by a wide area and Castin took a shot with deadlier precision. As he ran up the rest of the hill fifteen troopers came running in at Castin. Suddenly three seperate green bolts whirred past him striking three targers so he ducked to the ground and started firing in a wave. In a minute later LongShot and Fish were right next to him firing upon the crowd. "KEEP THEM BUSY GO GO GO." Castin said as he got up and ran towards the shield generator. Iether the stormies didnt see him or they couldnt believe what they were seeing. A single man ran right through the crowd firing upon anything in his way and he was also heading toward the generator. But that didn't keep them suprised. Soon the fire died down until all of the are was silent again and Castin found his way into the building and the only resistance he met was three officers had clumsily tried to jump Castin but his repeater did the work that they couldnt do. Castin had previosly setup a bomb more advanced than that of which he used on Ambria. The bomb had the timer already in it and everything was packed and ready to go plus it wouldnt have gone off if the stormies stepped on it. Castin set it up on top of the console and timed it and ran out the door where everyone was waiting. Together they ran towards the next point of the attack. Fish and LongShot suffered from todays running and Castin would feel good albiet not as good as them when he told them to take a load off. it took a few minutes until they heard the deaffening explosion from the bomb and a second later his Comm. Unit beeped. "SHIELD DEACTIVATED COMMENCING ATTACK." Ionforce said and Castin could hear some blasters going off. "WAIT UNTIL WE GET THERE TO TAKE DOWN BUILDINGS." Castin yelled as he ran. In two minutes they reached the other team and as soon as they took dirt next to the others helped them. "RAIL DETONATORS GET PREPARED." Castin ordered. Castin rolled over the troopers and started issuing orders for which buildings to hit. Two people per group were going to hit one building four times each and then move onto the other building ordered to them and if they had anyhting left use them on the infantry. Castin as soon as he ordered them all what to hit took out his binoculars and eyed the rest of the area. "RAILERS GIVE IT TO THEM NOW." Almost in unison ten rails hit into the buildings causing major damage with one hit alone. They fired again and again and again until the buildings were in ruin. Kaci Crawled up to Castin and yelled. "WE GOT COMPANY TO THE LEFT OF US." She screamed over the fire. Castin Looked over and saw some storm troopers runnin off to flank them. if they arent stopped were going to be slaughtered. He thought. "KACI COME WITH ME KEEP YOUR HEAD DOWN GUN READY BUT FINGER OFF THE TRIGGER AND IF YOU SEE ANYTHING DRESSED IN WHITE PUT THE SIGHTS RIGHT INTO HIS CHEST AND LET HIM HAVE IT." Castin yelled. Fire burned in her eyes and she nodded. Kaci and Castin took off over the ridge to engage the threat and turn them back As they got past a small hill they caught their first glimpse of the stormtroopers. "CASTIN LOOK." She screamed. Castin grabbed her as they hit the floor and Castin raised the BowCaster he borrowed from Gladin and fired a round into one of the stormies armored plate. "I SEE SIX CASTIN." Kaci yelled as she fired but missed by a margin. "SQUEEZ THE TRIGGER SOFTLY SO YOU HAVE BETTER CONTROL OF YOUR WEAPON." Castin said as he dispatched two stormies charging at them with a charged burst that made three shots. Suddenly a recon trooper popped up behind a rock and took aim at Castin. Castin reeled around but knew he wouldn't have time to fire but he tried desperately to aim. Suddenly a blast came from his side and the trooper jolted and tried to spin around but four other shots hit him and sent the trooper to the floor. The trooper kicked once and died. Kaci spun around and shot another recon trooper in the face knocking him off of his knees and to the floor with a big thump. Kaci sat there terrified at what she had just done. She dropped her gun and bent over like she was about to vomit. Castin stood up and held her and patted her. "I just killed someone, I murdered them." She said about to cry. Castin shook his head. "No that was not murder, it came down to your life, my life, or theirs what you did wasnt murder it is caleld self defense and were here on a hostile planet that wants to do this exact same to us without mercy. I know how you feel I felt the same way and I would be concearned if you didnt feel bad about it." He was cut off when another explosion rocked the area. "We should get going." Kaci said wiping a tear off her face. They ran back taking there time dodging incomming fire but they didnt encounter much but they crawled anyways. "Ok Castin wherever you went you missed alot. we just broke through the defense and the way into the facility is past that walk bridge, were going to send teams of four past the bridge. As soon as we get across we can hit the barracks hard and get out." Kraka said. Castin shook his head. "Four will be dramatically outnumbered we stand better chance charging across and hit the barracks." Castin said. "Well thats crazy but it might work OK EVERYONE GATHER ROUND GATHER ROUND WERE GONNA CHARGE THE BRIDGE TO GET ACROSS LETS MOVE." Kraka said. Castin fired a few more rounds into the combat zone and gave the battle charge. Twenty one people got up at the same time all yelling or grunting to get to the bridge and laser fire burned the air around them and Kraka saw a blast go through Castins sleeve catching his arm in fire. Castin looked down and patted the fire out and kept advancing. They never slowed down when they reached the bridge and soon they were on the other side. Ion hit the deck and let loose another salvo of rail detonators into a mobile laser platform. Bringing out his assault rifle Ion fired onto a platform where three stormtroopers were firing upon them. LongShot landed next to him and started equipping his sniper rifle. Ion was amazed at how quickly he got it setup and started firing. LS saw an E-Web gunner firing upon somone to the left of him and smiled we could use an E-Web gun if i can get there... LS took aim at the gunner and fired one shot into the troopers upper head. The trooper wobbled for a second or two and then hit the ground and another man came up to take over and met the same fate. "Ion, enemy E-Web up there one hundred yards if we can get a hold of that we will have a huge upper hand." LS said. Ion borrowed LongShots sniper rifle and looked at the E-Web and smiled. "Yeah it looks out over the courtyard wanna blitz it?" Ion Asked. Longshot smiled and slapped Ions shoulder in a freindly move. "Why I thought you would never ask." He said as the two got up and started running to the platform. as soon as they got there ion took over the E-Web, as LongShot sniped a few more stormies. "Castin we are securing courtyard, your objective is near get the raielrs to a good firing position we will provide cover." LS said. Ion was to busy to hear what was being said due to some trouble over at the other end of the courtyard. In a two building wedge about thirty yards apart storm troopers were building resistance firing. Longshot with an iron determination fired unrelenting shots to the area and didn't notice the ammount of lasers flying over him and Longshot. Firing in a wave he hit something that blew up next to the building scatering a few stormies. LongShot fired one shot into the building to the left dropping a stormtrooper out a window to the ground below. Still firing Ion saw a group of troopers moving in at him TO very close for compfort. As he swung over t odeal with them he saw many troopers move to advance on him. "INCOMMING FROM LEFT." Ion yelled to LS. "INCMMING FROM RIGHT." LongShot replied. The stormies were charging from the left and right and them two were right in the middel. Long shot disabled his sniper scope and shot in a wave at the troopers on his side. The cover that they had been behind was now taking direct hit after direct hit. " Firing all they could they defeated wave after wave but they just kept comming. Ion and LS were starting to get concearned but they fired. Ion roared with adrenaline as he waged war with his corner. Four advanced troopers with heavier bodysuits were advancing and shooting at him but Ion was more than pleased to give it right back and slowly one by one persished. LongShot tracked al lof his shots into each and every person with the fluid motion of a jedi. LongShot was getting concearned and time slowed down to where everything slowed down giving him a gods eye of what was going on as he dodged shot after shot of incomming fire. A heavy trooper advanced to the front of the crowd and it was a duel. the two exchanged shots at one another never flinching for a second until LongShot his an explosive canister on the mans suit blowing him to bits. LongShot swivveled around to take care of the last but was cut short when tong of green laser fire hit them with fierce agreesion. LongShot looked over to see Gladin and Fish firing upon them with BowCasters and the rest in pursuit advancing. and Castin started running to the base but stopped and looked over his shoulder to a speeder barn. Castin saw five of the imps jump on speeder bikes but one was shot off by a shot made by Gladin "THERE GETTING AWAY." Gladin shouted. Castin ran over to the nearest speeder and started it up without even thinking on it and he felt something get on behind him. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Kaci on the speeder. "Hold tight." Castin said as he hit the accelerator castin threw his demomans special to LS and as he caught it LS nodded and went to set the charges. Castin jerked a bit from the start and they were off after the four. everyhting was a blur to Kaci but she could notice more rock formations comming around them were going ot be chasing them in a cliff. She thought as she grabbed a tighter grip on Castin and hid her head behind her shoulder. Castin hit the accelerator and he sped as fast as it could go and he got his first imp into his sights. Castin hit the trigger sending bolts of energy right over his head damnit jsut a little lower and I woulda had him. he thought to himself. They went through a tight turn and castin had a clear shot. As Castin triggered a shot Kaci tugged on his coat and pointed upwards. Castin didnt notice until he saw the speeder bike explode sending the pilot hurtling into a cliff face. Castin looked up to see what she was doing and something wasnt right. A man running about the speed of them with a glowing rod was above them. Sons of a sith thats a lightsabre. The imps have no interest in jedi....DAMNIT a Sith. Castin looked back down and saw a rock formation hanging low so he drove his speeder down to the ground more and ducked. "DUCK LOWHANGING ROCKS." Castin yelled. He felt Kaci's head force into his back as he went down. There was another not far away how did he get away? Castin thought to himself. The answer came when Kaci knocked on his helmet and spoke. "He is behind us he must have hid above the rocks." She said. Sure enough he recieved more proof of that when a bolt came near him and hit into a rock side. Castin swerved a little and looked behind and saw there was two of them. Castin smiled wryly not about what he was about to do. "Kaci hold on as tight as you can and close your eyes." Castin yelled over him. Castin was looking frantically for a wide open space but found none so decided it was worth a shot anyways. If this doesnt work I'll be dead but Kaci would have a chance of getting away with maybe a mark or two. Castin thought to himself. Gripping the handle as hard as he can he cut the left propulsion and hit the brakes sending them into a spin. Seconds litterally dripped down into years and Castin took advantage of that state of mind. As soon as they came to a stop, Castin let loose with everything he had. He unhooked his blaster with one hand and pulled the trigger on the speeder with the other. The lead took the speeder blast to the chest and was sent flying into the cloud of what was the second before Castins repeater hit the Fuel tank. The trooper never made it past the plum of fire it made, making Castin thought to himself that the trooper must have vaporized. Castin turned the speeder around and kicked it into full speed. As he looked up to see if the man that was following him was still there he was answered when the man jumped over ninety feet of cliff to the other side and kept running in his direction. The force is strong with that one I'm sure ole Darth would have said. He thought with a chuckle. It seemed like hours to him but in a minute they had caught up with the last escaping trooper. Rocks that had fallen off the cliff had littered the floor below for what seemed hundreds of years making it dangerous to navigate through. Castin brought up his speeder to avoid all the medium sized rocks while swerving left and right through the rest. Castin only caught glimpses of the escaping speeder as they went through the rocks but Castin could see a clearing a yew yards away and a huge rock that was angled towards the opening, giving Castin an idea. The speeder wound his way through the remaining rocks but Castin hit the rock and the speeder went right up and cleared all the rocks left in front of them and the speeder touched down on the surface kicking a bunch of dirt up into tha air. Castin turned around and prepared the speeders blasters and in a few seconds later the speeder came out of the rocks and was not to say the least expecting to see Castin sitting there. The trooper jumped off as Castin hit it with a Blast but upon landing the trooper broke his neck on a rock and died instantly. Castin turned off the speeder and stepped off and took a few steps out into the open and brought out a pair of goggles to search the canyon side for his supposed sith. Nothing was there and Castin started backing to the speeder bike and motioned Kaci to get on. As Castin got on Kaci gave him a tight hug and burried her head in his shoulder and started to cry. "Why do people have to fight?" She asked him behind her tears. Although it sounded like something a child would ask, he couldn't really answer. What she had seen today was not something many people had seen and to make it worse she had participated in it and and killed someone. That probably scared her to the depth of her sould just like it had Castin when he had his first combat experience on the ground in chandrilla. Castin wrapped his arms around her and stayed like that for a while until she finally let go and they rushed back to the others where LS was waiting for Castin and his bag. Castin took his bag and the insertion team busted throguh the door and only four shots erupted. Kaci stayed on the speeder with a blaster in her hand just in case any imps came out. While they were gone they captured twenty speeders and a few camo blankets to keep them hidden. Raslan came out of the building followed by everyone else at a run. Kaci got on the speeder and in a second Castin was on and everyone was off. The building exploded and as the smoke cleared they were well away.


Chapter Five: Dark Secrets

The groups took a day to rest and get caught up in sleep until the next event. The chances of them being caught were slim but they still had guard watch. In the attack they had also gotten foodstuffs so the hunger they had was no more. It was now five days and fifteen hours since they had been stranded LongShot calculated. Kaci got up and stretched and walked up to LongShot. “Hey LS need company?” She asked. LS agreed and they talked for a while. “So is it true the force can protect a person from dying?” Kaci asked. LS chuckled a bit at that comment. “Well it can sure help but knowing how to defend yourself I personally find is a lot more comforting.” LS said. Kaci shrugged. “I don’t know any defense could you teach me?” Kaci said curious. LS got up and spoke. “Ok suppose you are close to an armed person.” LS said as he picked up a stick and pretended it was a blaster. “Ok now I have a blaster trained at you what do you do?” LS asked. Kaci shrugged and LS gave her the stick. “Ok now you got the blaster pointed at me but watch this.” LS said as he swiveled around grabbing her hand and in a mock motion break the blaster from her grip. “Now there is many ways you can do this if you just want the blaster you can grab the mans hand and take it with the other hand more than likely he wont have time to react. Now if you want to damage him as well you could either bring your fist down on his wrist possible spraining it or breaking it or you can bring your knee into it.” LS said. Kaci practiced the move that she had learned and was getting better. “Now what if I’m going to get hit by a person?” Kaci asked. “Well that move is intended for that too so you shouldn’t have a problem.” LS said. “I personally would like to break the mans arm instead of his wrist LS.” Castin said as he came around a rock and leaned on it. “If you could Kaci a full force blow to the opposite side of the mans elbow could render him nearly defenseless just grab his arm and pull back on it as you make the punch.” Castin said. LS looked over at Castin. “Nice where did you learn that?” Ls asked. “I was once a pirate remember? You either had to learn to survive or you wouldn’t make it far.” Castin said. “By the way in about an hour I’ll come relieve you LS thanks for standing guard.” Castin finished up. LS waved that away and continued guard. Castin went back to his makeshift bed and laid down for a moment before Kaci sat down next to him. “Hey Castin how do you feel?” She asked. Castin leaned up and shrugged. “Alright I guess and you?” He replied. Then came silence for a few seconds until one of them thought of a subject. “So what did they nab ya for Kaci?” Castin asked, not the best subject to talk about but that was on his mind since he met her. “Well I was drafted to go into the imperial academy as a spy about the time I was ten… I guess the emperor thought that would be a good idea for infiltrating the rebels but after a year of training how to splice and hack I made a new identity for myself and tried to get away but I was caught and now I am here. What did you join the NRN for, may I ask?” Kaci asked. “Well my parents were cargo transporters for the empire but they tried to defect. The imperials tried to vape my entire family but thanks to a teacher of mine I was put aboard a pirate ship and escaped but the lady who helped me died. So for a good part of my life I had been hunting the man who killed my parents but somewhere along the line after I killed my boss in self defense I joined the GF division and then the air force in the attack on Chandrilla where I met the murderer and killed him.” Castin said. Kaci was about to reply when the two heard a noise in the darkened area of the cave. “What’s that?” Castin asked. They got up and took a look but couldn’t see anything so they walked toward the darkness. Castin unbuttoned the strap on his holster and grabbed onto the holster as he stepped over Ion fast asleep and snoring. Sons of the sith it coulda been him the way he’s snoring. Castin thought to himself letting a smirk go to his face. Kaci caught up to Castin and started looking around. “I have a bad feeling ab…” Kaci was about to say but couldn’t finish before the ground shook underneath and the cave swallowed them up. The two tumbled and fell hitting roots, rocks and who knows what until they saw an opening. Castin and Kaci hit the floor after falling down the tunnel. Neither could remember how long the fall had been but it wasn’t a long fall. Castin got up and dusted himself off and then got his comm. link out and activated it. “Anyone home up there?” Castin said on the comm. Link Ion replied. “Where are you Castin?” Ion said confused. “Kaci and I fell through the ground and are now in another level of the cave.” Castin replied. “Why do you always have to mess around Castin?” Ion spoke angrily. Castin shrugged and smiled sarcastically. “I had no idea investigation to you was considered messing around remind me not to send you in for recon duty. There was something alive in the cave and Kaci and I went after it and we ended up here.” Castin said. “Where did you fall in Castin?” Ion asked. Castin looked up but couldn’t see a thing. “Just go deeper into the cave bet be careful and you should see the hole.” Castin said as he searched for a light stick.

Castin handed Kaci his blasters and got out his light saber. “Where are we Cas?” Kaci said. “Well normally I would love to give you an answer but I’m short of one myself. Stand back I can’t find my light sticks so I’m going to see if my light saber can give some light until I find one.” Castin said as he drew it and turned it on. Kaci screamed and Castin ran over to were she was and found a pile of bones on an alter. “What in the name of the Sith?” She asked. Castin finally found a light stick and activated it and went into awe at the sight. Many old relics were all about the place. “Castin what are all of these things?” she asked. “Ancient artifacts had been strewn about the place. f what I don’t know but they are force oriented I have a very bad feeling inside me.” He replied. Castin could feel the force in him warning him about something but he couldn’t find out why. His mind was screaming for him to get out of there so he activated his comm. Link and spoke. “Ion we just uncovered something for lack of a better word incredible. A huge, HUGE room full of ancient stuff and what it is eludes me but something feels very wrong.” Castin said. “Ok Cas listen up I’m coming down I’ll fasten a cord to something sturdy and come down to get you two hold still for a moment.” Ion said. Castin snapped to his left as something made a noise and vanished. “Ion we are not alone down here.” Castin said. Ion checked his blaster pistol and grabbed another power pack. “Ok I’m coming.” Ion said as he began to grapple down. Ion switched on his light goggles and made his way down but something wrong happened. Ion felt a snap in the cord and then it was all up to gravity. Ion hit his head as he fell and didn’t remember much of the way down but the landing he did remember. “Sithspi…” Ion wasn’t able to finish when a rock hit his head causing him to curse. Ion got up and rubbed his head. “Castin? Kaci? Ion yelled making it echo. Ion drew out a light stick and activated it and same as the other two went into awe. The room was twice the size of the battlements room on Coruscant, which he didn’t think a room of that size was imaginable. “These are Sith artifacts.” Ion mumbled to himself. Ion swung around and saw Castin approaching. “Ok let’s get outa here before something happens.” Castin said. “Normally Cas I really would love to oblige but the cord snapped and I fell the same as you did.” Ion said. Castin cursed and Kaci couldn’t believe it. “Ok this might complicate things just a bit Castin don’t worry.” Ion said trying to defend himself. “Ohh I’m not worried that the only way we can escape from here was just destroyed but what worries me is that something is indeed alive down here.” Castin said. The trio walked further until they reached a door. Castin looked over and saw a lever and went to pull it. As he pulled it something inside of him screamed to look out. Suddenly an object lunged for Castin knocking him to the floor. Ion drew his blaster but was thrown into a deeper room. Kaci tried to escape through another door but was struck down by something heavy. Castin looked up after dusting himself off and saw the Sith who had pursued him in the canyons. Castin drew his light saber but not igniting it. “So you’re the one who chased Kaci and I through the canyon a couple days ago.” Castin said as he finally ignited it. “Yes.” The Sith replied. “Mind if I have your name Sith?” Castin asked. “My name is Sith Mecc but my real name is Trowu Mak.” Mecc replied. Castin felt a lump in his throat. “You killed my brother and now you shall pay the price.” Mecc said in anger. “Your brother killed my parents when I was a child I am glad I wounded him and then finished him off.” Castin said triumphantly. Castin was referring to his first battle The Battle above Chandrilla where princess Leigh Organa and several other new republic officials were attacked and the New Republic Navy assisted in rescuing them. Castin met up with Sillar in the skies and after a grueling battle between them that lasted twenty minutes, Castin thought he had killed Sillar by sending him into a cliff face. Then a year later he returned to Coruscant to try to kill Castin. By then Sillar was ½ mechanic and in a blaster fight he had finally killed him by shooting him repeatedly and shoving him off a landing dock but at the price of Castins first love which he intended to marry. “Do you really think he was alone? No I was there when I saw your family executed without mercy. I watched your father beg for his life as his wife screamed in pain and agony. They died like cowards and nothing gave me greater pleasure than seeing that.” Mecc said. Castin got more furious with every insult thrown at him and he couldn’t control it anymore. Castin lunged at Mecc and the two light sabers clashed.

Ion as he was thrown through the air went over the bridge they were on but was able to grab an old root of a tree slowing down his fall but the root snapped and sent him to the ground what is it with me and rope type objects today? He thought to himself as he landed. Ion went to grab a stick protruding out of the wall for balance but when it gave way he finally fell. Gears started to click and then two walls of metal slammed down on him. The wall was fifty feet in height and the first fifteen feet of it were spikes. The next second he knew razor blades started snapping about five feet above the spikes and a platform gave rest to anyone who made it that far. Fire then started spewing out a little farther above that and places were a man could climb above them started to appear in the light of the flame. “NOW WHAT?” Ion said. He was rewarded when the spikes started to come toward each other at a rather fast pace. I could force jump above them but if I don’t do it right my head will be detached from my shoulders by those blades. Ion thought. He went to the nearest spikes and started to climb as he noticed two skeletons trapped inside. That wasn’t a bridge I was on; it was an observation platform to watch this madness from safety. He thought. Ion looked over and saw the spikes coming at him at a fast pace giving him the will and the want to move faster.

Kaci was thrown back into a darker room and was disoriented on where she was for a brief moment. When she saw Castin draw his light saber she went to run in his direction when a fist slammed into her side. Knocked to the ground she tried desperately to gain her breath and to see who it was who gave her the cheap shot. A storm trooper in camouflage stood above her. “Stand up.” The man snarled at her. Kaci slowly stood up as she seen the man draw a blaster on her. Kaci raised her hands as the man approached her. “So you’re the woman who escaped the prison facility. Well be glad to know you wont go back I shall kill you here now.” He said. Kaci felt fear but then laughed at him. “So you’re big on killing unarmed women are you? I guess its fair since I killed well over a dozen of your comrades armed and easily too.” She said. She was lying about the dozen part but she did kill two in the attack. The man approached a little closer and went to butt stroke her with his blaster. Instantly she remembered the fighting technique LongShot had told her and she dodged the shot and in a fluid like motion grabbed the mans blaster arm and brought her knee to the mans hand knocking the weapon away. She hit with such force she sent the weapon behind a statue but she also hurt her knee in doing so. The man after he groaned in pain back handed Kaci and knocked her to the floor. “You think your better than me woman?” He said triumphant. “Damn right you bastard I KNOW I’m better than you.” She said. The man smiled and laughed evilly. “I am IGF special forces I don’t need a blaster to kill you with.” He said as he approached Kaci. Kaci grabbed up some sand and as the trooper lifted her up threw it in his face giving her some time.

Castin gave a battle cry as he slammed into the Sith as hard as he could. The anger was taking him and was uncontrollable. Mecc brought his side into view and dodged the blow and kicked Castin to the floor and lunged at him on the floor. Castin brought his saber up to deflect the shot and got himself off the floor. As he stood ready for combat a voice in his mind spoke to him. Let go of your anger Castin you can’t win like this. It said to him. Castin blocked a shot to the left of him and force threw his foe a few steps back. Castin breathed in heavily. Ok Castin don’t let him get to your mind and strike him down in anger. Castin rid the grimace on his face and replaced it with a smile. “I thought the Sith fought harder than this, but I never should have assumed.” Castin said. Mecc with all his might charged at Castin ready to strike. The two clashed once more striking at each other many times while performing dodges, parries and somersaults.

Ion worked as fast as he could with the spikes digging into his flesh but managed to jump above the spikes before the closed down on him. “That was fun.” Ion said in a very sarcastic tone. Ion looked up and saw the blades slashing and swinging and tried to time them but it was totally random. As he looked down the skeleton that had greeted him as he was climbing gave him and idea. He quickly fished his hand down and grabbed the shoulder blade from the skeleton and fished it out and watched the blade. The blade to the left went inward making a nice sized hole wide enough to jump upwards too. Ion jammed the bone into the gears and the bone cracked and grinded as it slowed the blade down but not stopping it. Ion took this opportunity to jump and land on the platform above the blades as a ball of fire came his way. Lying as flat as he could he started to feel some heat below him. He turned upside down and felt the platform getting warm. This thing is going to cook me alive if I stay on here much longer. Ion saw the handles sticking out of the walls and jumped on one, dodging a fireball that struck right where he was laying.

The trooper cleared his eyes and tackled Kaci to the floor and brought her up by the hair to her knees. “That was a very STUPID idea lady.” The trooper said as he slammed his fist into her one more time knocking her to the floor. He went up and grabbed her brining her to her knees again and spoke. “And now I am afraid you must die now.” He trooper said as he brought his fist up and prepared to kill her. As she looked back and saw the fist coming down at her he remembered what Castin had shown her along with LongShot. She quickly brought her head to the opposite side of the troopers arm and grabbed it. The trooper didn’t have a time to react when she grabbed the troopers arm, punching the outside of his elbow while pulling back on it breaking his arm. The trooper screamed in agony and pain as Kaci stood up and swung back and slammed her arm into the mans throat. Kaci felt the trooper’s neck snap and she let go of him as he fell to the floor. Kaci sat back down in much pain and clutched her stomach. She screamed out in pain and stood up and walked out the door in a heavy daze and went to find Ion and Castin.

Castin saw the man lunge at him and dodged the initial attack and spun around and realized Mecc had made his last mistake of his life. Castin leaped at Mecc with clear vision and iron will and slammed into Mecc with their light sabers clashing and sparking. Castin lunged, volley and spun toward Mecc forcing him to take step back until Mecc realized that he had nowhere to go and slipped and took a fifteen foot fall. Mecc hit the floor in a thud and Castin jumped down with light saber ready to kill but let off and allowed Mecc to get back up. Mecc took an overhead swing and Castin took advantage. Deflecting the shot Castin dug his knee into the mans stomach and then thrusted his light saber into the Siths stomach afterwards. The blade missed its target but he was now leading Mecc near this ledge, the two exchanged more blows but Castin started seeing things clearly now. He had felt very foolish for giving into Mecc’s deceit and was now going to end this. Castin’s light saber deflected another shot and Castin used his force to push him off the ledge. Mecc flew off and hit the ground face first and Castin jumped from rock to rock using his force to guide his way down as quickly as possible. Mecc stood up and as Castin took one more leap tried to kill him in mid air. Castin’s saber deflected the shot and struck Mecc in the neck severing his head from his shoulders still in the air. Castin looked at the body still standing for a second and inhaled as it fell to the floor, and kneeled before the corpse. Castin had done well in a few light saber tournaments and games but he had not once ever faced a Sith until today. Relief washed over him but some things were confusing to him. He had heard a single TIE pilot killed his family but now there are two of them. Castin looked up and saw Kaci slowly walking toward him, limping and hurt. Castin ran up to Kaci and she fell into his arms. “You ok? Kaci how bad are you hurt?” Castin asked. “I’m good I’ll be ok where’s Ion at?” Kaci said. Castin looked around but couldn’t see him but then a yell for help gave him a clue.

Ion started to feel very hot so he jumped up and grabbed the first pole sticking out of the wall. As Ion worked his way up flames were flying by and a flame or two hit him. Ion grabbed a hold onto the next pole and pulled his leg up to the bottom pole and pulled himself up to the third. Ion went to grab to the forth but it seared his hand making his yell in pain. Ion back on the third pole looked all around the room area looking for another may and found it. Ion took out some cord and connected it to the grapple attachment on his blaster. Lets hope this stuff lasts longer then the rest have so far. Ion would have grappled a wall or something above the pit if he could but the cord was only twenty feet long and could barely hit the next wall. Ion aimed his blaster up toward another set of poles sticking out. Ion pulled the trigger and sent the hook about a foot down from the pole and swung as the grapple attachment pulled him upwards. As soon as he reached it and grabbed on for his dear life. “SOMEBODY HELP ME.” Ion yelled at the top of his voice. He tried to free the grapple but it stuck to far in to pull it out without some device. Ion yelled again as the flames were becoming more and more frequent and gathered closer together. Ion reached up and grabbed the other pole and brought himself up and grabbed the other. The pole broke and made Ion go off balance. About to fall, he wailed his hands in the air and something caught him. Castin was above him with a death grip on ion and Kaci Sat down and reached down to get his other arm. A fireball shot up from the ground and Ion helped more than the other two, to get out of the hole. Ion laid on the floor watching the fireball hit the roof and explode in flames. “So where were you two should I dare ask.” Ion said sarcastically trying to gain his breath. “Ohh you know, Sith wannabe’s, IGF crack commandos on a power rush, the usual. Where were you should we dare ask?” Castin replied. Ion sat up and looked down. “Well a giant spiked trap, bloodthirsty blades and a fiery escape thanks for asking though.” Ion said. The all stood up and walked to where they were when they got ambushed and looked through the door. A ladder made of very old and rusted Transparisteel went up about ninety feet. “Well I know it’s chivalric to let ladies go first but I think I’ll let you guys go first.” Kaci said. Castin took the lead and they began to climb. Every step they took made the ladder creek and loosen up. “Ok nothing to it ok let’s just get up here as fast as possible.” Ion said. Castin laughed at Ion. “Relax Ion I don’t think any spiked cages or fireballs are going to erupt any time soon.” Castin said. Ion murdered something and kept going with the two. They climbed for about another minute and then reached a door made out of ancient rusted door welded shut. "Now what?" Castin said. Ion went and took a look around. "I think we might need another way out." Kaci said. Castin walked up to the door and pounded it with his fist. "Theres something behind this door its not a hollow knock. Ion you got any powerpacks?" Castin said. Ion pulled out three powerpacks and handed them to Castin. "What do you plan on doing?" Kaci asked. Castin gave his demolition man smile and spoke. "I'm gonna ge us outa here you better go take cover you too." He siad. Ion lead Kaci down through the stairs. Castin pulled out some demo tape out and taped the three powerpacks and the other four he had together and armed a blasting cap on the side of the package. Castin examined his blaster. one shot left in this one I better hit this the first time. Castin thought as he turned half the corner and aimed at the explosive and pulled the trigger. The blast caught the small blasting cap which ignited the powerpacks making a loud explosion which run in Castins ear as he was thrown down a part of the staircase. Castin got up and examined the explosion site. The door was cracked and giving in quick so Castin ran back down the stairs. Suddenly a huge wrenching sound was heard and the door broke loose sending tons of dirt and rock in. as the dust settled over the stairs Castin walked down the lasst part of the steps with a self satisfactory smile. We may now leave." Castin said. It took a littel digging but when they saw sunlight they managed to squeeze out Kaci first Ion second and Castin third. Kaci looked ot her left and smiled. "Hey LS is over there." She said as she waved. LS drew his rifle but then saw her and the others emerging and went to go see what had been going on. "What in the Sith are you guys doing?" LS asked. Ion Looked up and sighed as he rested an arm on LS's shoulder. "Dont ask...just dont ask." Ion said. Castin emerged from the hole and looked at ion. "Hi LS." Castin siad. Speechless LS waved hi and walked away. "Ok I can get out alone no problem." Castin said sarcastically as he used the force to jump out." Castin said as he did so and walked off to the cave where he took LongShots post and stod guard. Twenty minuted later mandy came back clutching a bacta bag to her abdominal area that would heal all her wonds in that area like a warm bag of flax seeds would make a sore muscle feel better. As he stood there Kaci came up and rested her hand on him. "How are you Cas?" She asked. I'm alright and you?" Castin replied. She shrugged. "I'm ok I guess, I wanted to thank you for showing me those moves it came in handy along with LS's trick." Kaci said. "Castin smiled. "Anytime I could show you a bit more if you like." He said. Kaci came to his front and have him a kiss on the lips and then took a tep back. The two sat there silent for a seconf and then in tandem they both covered each other in their arms and kisses for a few seconds longer until Anakin walked by. "Ohh..Castin...Mandy I had no idea you wer...I was ju...I'm gonna go take a walk that way you two go back to business." Anakin said as he quickly turned the corner. Castin smiled and Kaci laughed and then she went back into the cave. Castin leaned against the rock with a smile.

Location: NRN Staging area near Alderaan system.

The rest of the NRN srood around in the breifing rooms aboard all the ships. All NRN vessels were called into action and were now ready to make a rescue attempt. more like commit suicide...id give my right eye for a few more ships and fighters. Das thought to himself as he got in front of the view screens. Das loosened his collar and stepped up to the Comm. "Lets skip the formalities and get down to why we are all here. Five standard days ago we went twenty GF operatives into the Ossus system in attempt to liberate thousands of POW's a standarf two hours into the mission they were suprised and ambushed by an armada of imperial warships and their getaway was destroyes stranding them on the hostile planet. We have now concluded that the enemy armada consists of two Super Star Destroyers five Imp destroyers and an Interdictor." Das had to stop all the mumblins and such going on across the area but he understood. "Now our strategy is simple. We will jump far enough away from the larger ships and keep our distance and make comm link contact with the ground forces. We have analized their defenses and near the main compound are two Ion Cannons. Those two together should carry enough power to imoblize one of the supers with multiple blasts from ions before the other one pours some of its fire into them. After that we expect heavy TIE resistance so expect alot of dogfighting but once we can we will pick off the smaller ships using our snubfighters and bombers. Once that is done our assault on the Super will be under away. Whoever has made it this far will dump everyhting they have onto the super. I know this is sounds foolish but it is our only choice." Das took a long sigh. "We mobilize in five ours be prepared. we will not and I mean will not let them die down there, we will fight to the last man and fight for what we have fought all our lives to keep. Our freedom. May the force be with you ladies and gentalmen...Dismissed" Das finsihed up. The comm channel erupted with battle cries as they all flooded to their ships and stations. Das stepped down and motioned Hope to come to his side. "Hows the ground droids holding up Hope?" He asked. In this opperation they couldnt afford to have anyone out of a fighter. "There rusted pieces of junk are ready and we have thirteen Droid controlled tanks on standby." Hope replied as he donned his fighter helmet. Suddenly a Rodian ran up to Das and whispered something that caught Das's full attention. "WHAT??? how many?" He yelled out in disbelief. "Five? Are they hostile?" Das said. The Rodian shook his head negatively and Das walked quickly up to the comm room. Out the viewport five Calamari Cruisers that had gone major refits and more were outside in formation. "I wish to speak to the leader of this outfit now." A man with a harsh grindy voice said over the comm. "This is Fleet Admiral Das identify yourself." Das said. the grindy voice came back. "This is Larg S'oles and I believe the empire recently destroyed two things that belonged to me that you people used for a mission, we are here for payback. I have twelve squadrons of Y-Wings, A-Wings and Uglies at our disposal not to mention five calimari cruisers we earned some time ago." He said. Das shook his head in disbelief. I cant believe all this is happening, Das thought to himself "Attention Larg S'oles you are not a part of this mission and are ordered to return home and give no mention of this operation..." Das was cut off. "Negative we are here wether you like it or not, now take a look at the facts Admiral your going up against not one but two Super Star Destroyers not to mention various other crafts we could come in handy." He replied. Das was about to explode but then Wes pulled him aside. "Admiral I hate to admit but he is right we need all we can get. This man is willing to help us and I think we should take it, after all those extra Y-Wings might go the distance. Ontop of that, Admiral we ran a scan of this company its been entirely loyal to us since the battle of Endor. They arent exactly Pirates but they could help alot and I think we can trust them." He said. Das took a moment to think it over, let out a deep sigh and spoke agian. "Welcome ot the Fight everyone we will transmit the coordinates to you imediately." Das said reluctantly. "You see? now that wasn't hard was it? We are glad to be of service to the Rebellion." Larg said laughing victoriously. "Tell your crew you have five hours before the jump to hyperspace, may the force be with you." Das said.

The Assault Begins Ion, asleep in his makeshift bed awoke to the buzzing of his comm. Link. Actually it made him jump and quickly find it. As he picked it up he checked to see who possibly could be sending the message and then went pale with relief when he saw who it was. Ion darted up and ran to Kraka and Castin discussing strategies and the low supply of food since most of it spoiled in the attack recently. Ion bumped past Kraka and went straight to Castin and handed it to him. Castin smiled widely and read the rest of the message and then handed the comm. To Ion and then spoke at the top of his voice. “EVERYONE GET UP WE GOT WORK TO DO.” Castin said. It took five minutes for everyone to get assembled and as they crowded into a large group Castin and Kraka were making a map on the floor with several icons. “Now for all of you who don’t know what is going on, the New Republic Fleet has arrived out of hyperspace.” Castin said as many voices raised in hopes and anticipation. Castin waved them down. “There’s a problem they are facing up there though and that would be the two SSD’s the empire is lovingly throwing at us. It is our job to take them down.” Castin said. Anakin looked over to Kraka and spoke up. “I am not sure I like the way this sounds.” Anakin said. Castin laughed at that remark. Strategists from command group plotted an attack that has the best survival probability. Using out newly acquired speeders we will hit here, a space defense platform with two ion turrets. Once we liberate that we will use the two ion turrets against the SSD’s.” Castin said. “That will take a few shots.” LongShot said. “True so both ion batteries will target one SSD at a time. Now targets of opportunity if we can aim the Ion turret that well are the ships fighter bays and some parts of the bridge. I’m estimating it will take at least twenty shots from each ion battery to disable one.” Castin said as more gasps came. Kraka stood up. And walked to the map on the ground. “We will see one of those knocked out of the fight. If not the NRN is not going to survive long. Now after we get all the use out of the ion battery as we can we are ordered to turn it into a heaping crater.” Kraka said noticing Fish’s hand was in the air. “You have a question fish?” Kraka said. Fish stood up. “Yes sir what is the chances that we might accidentally hit one of the fleet’s ships? Those things aren’t exactly pinpoint accurate.” He said. Castin stood up. “The fleet is far enough away from lethal range of the ion shots if any do hit our ships its not going to affect it, maybe some shield damage.” Castin said. Now after we demolish the ion batteries the prisoner camp is two clicks away. We will do a frontal assault taking out as many communications towers as we can along the way to cripple their way of communicating with each other. Now the comm. Relays they use are a giant red ball on top of a pole twenty feet up. Hit the ball and you’ve destroyed it. As soon as we gain control of the prison camp we are to hold it at any costs until the NRN gets down here to assist with tanks and other infantry. This is the most dangerous part but there is some advantages. The compound is on a peninsula with a ninety foot drop so we only have to worry about attacks from one side. Second of all we have a shield generator over it so we will have defense for a short while until they blow or disable the generator and the last is they will have to get over a twenty foot guard wall with defenses on it.” Castin said. Everyone liked what they were hearing so Castin continued. “Ok so lets go through this once, Attack confirmation code is Journey, the ion batteries are designated Mara, when we blow the batteries that’s designated Hammer. The compound is designated Rancor Pit, the hostages are designated Package, and the extraction zone is designated Last Stand. Sniper support from LS and Fish is designated Pinpoint and entrenched enemies are designated Moles. Any questions?” Castin said and took a breath. LS raised his hands and Kraka pointed at him. “When do we launch?” LS said. Kraka smiled “You have three minutes to get to your speeders.” Kraka said. Everyone let out a cheer and were off to where they covered the speeders. Everyone checked their weapons and power packs to make sure everything was fine. Castin got on his speeder and Kaci ran up and hopped on dressed in military fatigues. “Not bad you look as rough at we do.” Castin said. “I think I’ll take that as a compliment trooper.” She said in a sarcastic tone. Castin smiled and looked over to Gladin about ready to crack. Castin got off his bike and walked over to Gladin. “Is everything alright Gladin?” Castin said. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared in my life.” Gladin said. Castin smiled and patted him on the back. “I am too Gladin I am too.” Castin said. Gladin looked at him strangely. “You are?” Gladin said. “Look Gladin, taking on the imps this outnumbered isn’t something that we are eager to do. Just keep your concentration in the situation where it belongs and you will survive but stay on your toes.” Castin said. Gladin shook his head. “I’ll try sir.” Gladin said. “Hey I’m eighteen quit calling me sir.” Castin said in a playful voice as he slapped Gladins helmet and walked off to his speeder. When he got it started a lot of others were starting to leave in formations of five. Castin took off and joined his group.

Ten minutes later. “Hey you hear that? The New Republic Navy think they can go and take on two of our SSD’s and other destroyers all for the twenty pieces of scum on this forsaken planet.” An IMP said.

”How could you say forsaken I like this planet a lot.” The other imp said. “Well I guess it’s safe to assume the heat and humidity has fried your brain.” The lead imp said. “You think the rebels actually will pull through? They are sneaky devils and it only took Rogue squadron to cripple the Lusankya a year or so ago.” One of them said. The other shook his head. “That ice queen wanted it to be destroyed that’s the only explanation to it and of course I think they will be crushed we have dozens of squadrons ready to strike.” He said. Suddenly a bush rustled around and then froze making the imps train their weapons on the bush. They took a few steps forward and looked up to three other troopers in different areas looking down on them. They took a few steps toward it and looked into the brush. “Must have been a rat or something.” The leader said as he looked up. Just as he did a blaster shot caught him in the face knocking him dead. The other imp turned around and met another blaster shot to the neck and before he died he saw three other bodies fall to the floor in a red haze. Suddenly eighteen speeders ran up to the batteries and it was quickly flooded with GF personnel. LongShot and G0thic ran into the two batteries and prepared to fire. “I got SSD one in my sights.” G0thic said. Ion said the same and Castin came out. “Pinpoint, Hammer is secure I say again Hammer is secured lets go.” He said. In a few seconds two extra speeders arrived and the two jumped off and sat atop of a few crates overlooking the area. “Ghost is clear so far.” LS said as Fish raised his thumb in confirmation. “Ion control how long until strike?” Castin said. “Thirty seconds and an extra minute to shoot the SSD down.” G0thic said. Right as g0thic said that a shot rang out from Fish’s Sniper Rifle. “There emerging from the trees.” He said. Castin looked over in time to see a storm trooper mowed down by a shot from Fish. “Not to many of them.” LS said as he took a shot that stopped one cold. A blaster shot rocketed near a crate where Kaci was making her hit the floor. “SNIPER.” She screamed making everyone get behind cover. LongShot turned around and examined the shot mark and looked over to his right where a small cliff face was and on top of the cliff face. LongShot brought up his rifle and when he got a good target he ended the threat of that sniper. “Ion batteries One and Two Ready to fire.” Ion said over the comm. Unit. “EVERYBODY DOWN.” Castin said as the dome shaped battery opened up and got ready to fire. Everyone looked up to see the two batteries firing double bursts of blue and white streams into space. The first few volleys hit the bridge and two shots miraculously hit into the main fighter bay eliminating scores of TIE fighters. “The force be with us WE HIT THE FIGHTER BAY.” Ion said and got ready to cheer triumphantly when a heavy blast hit the ion cannon. The cannon kept firing but lost coolant with every shot soon the last ion shot flew towards its location and hit the SSD. Ion saw fires spewing from the cannon and got out just in time for it to catch fire. Ion looked up and saw two groups of five AT-PT units moving up to engage. “Castin we got two groups of five AT-PT units plus infantry moving up to flank.” Ion said. Castin lifted up his Comm. Castin looked up to the PT units converging on Ions position. “Krakaboo take four people with rail chargers over to Ion’s position we will provide cover.” Castin said. Krakaboo signaled over. “Ok Gothic, Anakin, Longshot, Raslan get some rail charges and come with me we’ve got some business to take care of.” Kraka said as he pulled a rail over his shoulder and checked his blaster carbine. “On the count of three we go…ahh hell THREE.” Krakaboo said as him and the other four charged across fifty yards of open field catching blaster fire along the way. Castin opened up his repeater on a group of troopers moving closer. Kraka ducked halfway through the field and aimed his rail charge at a PT unit and fired. The PT saw it coming and tried to move in another direction but the charge his broadside spining it to the ground. As he got back up a shot grazed his shoulder. “DAMN.” He yelled in pain as he kept running and got behind cover. The four he took with him were already garrisoned behind crates and walls firing onto. “Starting without me eh?” Kraka said sarcastically. Kraka jacked another round into the charge and greeted another PT unit. The rail slammed into the main view screen and kept going and exploded inside the cockpit. “Sir we got seven down they are leaving the combat area and are going to regroup.” Longshot said as he pulled a spent rail cartridge out of the weapon. “Castin the walker threat is leaving but probably will be back with more.” Kraka said. “Then lets not waste anymore time here all troopers proceed to objective Rancor pit, explosives are set lets move.” Castin said as he jumped onto his speeder with Kaci a few steps behind. “Hang on.” Castin said as he hit the accelerator as hard as he could. Soon everyone was on their speeders. Castin stopped a short ways away and pulled out a switch and pushed it. The remaining ion cannon that was then swarmed with imperials exploded into a fireball splashing metal and even some body parts all over. “Ok next stop team is objective Rancor Pit, move in fast and hard I’ll handle the Force Field around it.” Castin said. “Roger Ca…MAD leader.” Kraka corrected himself. In a second all speeders where gone from sight.

The New Republic fleet jumped out of hyperspace right in time to see a massive barrage of TIE fighters about to engage the ships. “GIVEM HELL.” Wes shouted into the Comm. Every cannon and ion battery on the new republic ships opened up a barrage on the incoming fighters. Then a swarm of X-Wings, A-Wings, B-Wings, Y-Wings, Z95 headhunters and several more ships emerged from all the ships. “Squads stay with each other, our main objective is to eliminate as many fighters as needed to guarantee safe passage for our bombers to the destroyers.” Das said into the comm link. Das locked onto an interceptor and gave it a quad burst of death. Ecnerwal looked up to his right and saw a wing of four bombers moving up to strafe the capital ships. As he pulled his X-wing up to engage he linked his weapons over to missiles and locked onto the leading bomber. The icon went from green, yellow and then to the deadly red and he let fly with a missile. The missile tracked its target and hi its rear side turning the bomber into scrap. The shock wave forced the pilot to its side to slow down but the rear pilot wasn’t as fast and the two collided. The bomber behind the missiled bomber crashed into the wreckage destroying it in a huge explosion. “Now that’s a kill.” Ecnerwal said with a satisfactory smile. “THE SSD Reaper HAS NOW COME UNDER SEVERE ION ATTACK, FIGHTER BAY DESTROYED AND SHIELDS ALREADY AT 80 PERCENT AND DROPPING FAST.” Das yelled triumphantly over his Comm. Cheers erupted from all around and the fighting continued. The star destroyer Halo and the Interdictor Cruiser Crusher moved into position to attack the pirate ship Glory of the Universe Larg S’oles Capital ship, quite heavily armed with the basic armaments but an additional 15 turbo laser batteries on each side, well outside of New Republic Ship Regulations. The three ships came into firing range and began exchanging volleys of turbo laser, Ion Cannon, and Missiles. “ALL SHIELDS FRONT, Z95’’s WORK OVER THAT INTERDICTOR.” Larg shouted into the Comm. Lana Sala, a quite attractive female pilot with somewhat long blonde hair and eyes as blue as the Mon Calamari seas spoke up. “Copy that, Headhunters on me link your weapons to dual missiles and target the bridge.” She said. Everyone acknowledged her. She brought her craft into position and got a steady lock on the bridge. Suddenly hers along with all the other crafts lock buzzer went off and in tandem they let off dual shots of proton torpedoes. The following explosion was huge and when it cleared there was not much of a bridge left. The Interdictors shields were strong but strained severely and disintegrated under the pressure of twenty four torpedoes. The Interdictor, although still in the fight, suffered severe power, communications and leadership and powered itself down quickly. The Glory of the Universe and the Halo were now side by side taking and giving each other hit’s the two titans roared as one shot hit the other. “Status?” Larg asked the Helmsman. “Sir we have 70 percent power on our Aft and Starboard side and five cannons, two Ion batteries and one missile tube have been destroyed.” the brown, scruffy haired person who was barely even a full grown man said. “When we get to thirty percent flip her over and keep fighting, I got a surprise for that BASTARD.” Larg said. The destroyer flipped over to his side like Larg predicted and a predatory smile washed over his face. The scruffy haired boy started to sweat as he watched the power meter went from seventy percent down to thirty. “ROLLING TO STERN.” The boy yelled. What the Destroyer had neglected to know was that on the Ships Stern housed twenty dual firing Proton Tubes that were camouflaged. The Destroyer didn’t even have a chance to react. “ORDINANCE GIVEM A BROADSIDE.” Larg yelled in. Forty Proton torpedoes fired from their hidden homes and streaked to the next to defenseless craft. Hit after hit smashed into the Aft of the Destroyer and as the tenth or eleventh torpedo hit the shields lost power leaving it open for the rest of the torpedoes and another barrage of twenty freshly fired torps. The ship was getting torn up and as the last one hit the Destroyer cut in half. Cheers erupted from the Pirate ship and Larg gave a triumphant battle cry. “ALRIGHT YOU IMPS BURN, Helms shut down all non essentials on the ship and move that power to recharge our shields.” Larg said with the predatory smile still on his face.

The Rodian inside the Righteous picked up a signal from the planet. “..Trooper Kraka…we…Infiltrated…Pit…drove off…Large counter…in the next…requesting…” the message was bogged down so the Rodian put it on a softener and replayed it. “This is Krakaboo, We have destroyed the Ion cannons and have now taken control of objective Rancor Pit. We drove the enemy off but we are expecting HUGE counter attack in the next hour over.”

The righteous at the same time was using the same tactic against the Redeemer but instead of the barrage of missiles it had a squadron of X-Wings to help take it out. “Attention Fleet Ground Forces have now infiltrated and liberated the POW camp but will be facing a lot of opposition in less than an hour and a half. If we do not hurry they might not last long.” The Rodian spoke into a special Comm. That broke his language down to other languages. Prozac heard the news and his heart sank into his seat. “Admiral Das, I am requesting that my squad and I try to stall the attacks.” Prozac said. Him and his squad were consisting of B-Wings and A-Wings. The reply took an eternity for Prozac. “Prozac that is a high risk operation, are you and your men aware of the dangers?” Das asked. Prozac’s Comm. Buzzed with consent’s from his squad. “Yes sir but I’m not gonna sit pretty while they are under heavy fire.” Prozac said. “Ok good luck and steer clear of that remaining SSD’s guns and fighters and safeguard them all…May the force be with you.” Das said. Prozac’s Squad formed into a V formation and flew to aid the troopers.

Chapter Seven
The Ground forces have met little resistance but will that change? Will Prozac and his squadron be able to hold off an invastion force of scouts, infantry, AT-ST AND AT-AT units? find out next Chapter Titled: Face Off.
The group of twenty one troopers advanced into view of the compound where the main objective the hostages were being held. “Looks like the tree line ends quite a distance from the compound, lets tighten up and increase speed everyone.” Kraka said into the comm. “Good idea, Blood angels form on Kraka, MAD form on me LETS GO.” Castin said. Kraka, Longshot, Anakin, Razorbac, G0thic, Fish, Altron, Hardtarget, Link, and Gavin formed into one spear formation to assault the left of the compound while Castin, Gear, Riker, Rljohn, Outrage, Gladin, Master, Wheeler, Varth and Kaci lined into the same formation. At both times imperial blaster fire started to pound the landscape all over. The intense fire kept persisting and Anakin saw four gunnery towers. “Permission to engage the towers Kraka?” He asked as he looked over to his brother Razor right next to him. “Castin, Anakin wants clearance to engage turrets do we want them down or do we take them alive?” He asked. Castin put his hand up to his ear piece. “Affirmative as soon as we take control we will need all the firepower we can get tell him to hold down.” He replied. Inside the prison facility Commander Freaye came to the outside and saw the twenty troopers advancing “If they have a death wish we will accommodate them OPEN FIRE AND GET REINFORCEMENTS UP HERE.” The commander said. A Lieutenant ran up to him “Sir we have reports of one of our SSD’s, our interdictor, and two of our destroyers dead and only one rebel ship dead.” The lieutenant said. Freaye cringed “soon they will break through the lines, get Base camp Omega and order them to send everything they have to this position.” He said cruelly, they had over three thousand troopers left along with 12 squadrons of AT-ST and seven AT-AT walkers. The lieutenant nodded. “That will take an hour but I shall inform them to move double time.” The man said. “THERE GOING INTO THE DEAD ZONE IN FIFTEEN SECONDS.” One of the turret gunners said. The Commander looked at them and a blaster shot nearly shot him in the head but shot a trooper in the chest behind him “No Bantha fodder.” The Commander said as he ran into the center of the facility. The fight above was just as terrifying as the two death stars put together, the new republic ships were starting to take a pounding and one of the pirate ships lost a battle when it engaged two remaining destroyers. The pilots were doing their best but were running out of missiles and torpedoes. Prozac and his squad were half way down to the planet when they caught up with a group of bombers heading in the same direction. “that’s almost three whole bomber squadrons, Objective Rancor pit wont stand a fighting chance, we must engage.” Prozac said and boosted the speed by taking off almost all shield power to the engines. “Attention bomber unit, this is general Prozac, you can surrender and make all of our lives easy or we can mop the surface of the planet with you which will it be?” Prozac asked. The bomber units didn’t respond but a majority of them switched their ordinance to torpedoes and began to turn around “guess that answers that OPEN FIRE.” Prozac said. Prozac switched to quad fire and tore a hole into two bombers before he had to take evasive from two bombers trying to get a lock, it was bad enough if one signature was trying to paint you but two? This wasn’t unfair but his opposition wasn’t really known for its fair play in combat. “I could use some help over here.” Prozac said. “I didn’t hear a please with that buddy ole pal of mine.” Furious said as he tracked the bombers chasing Prozac, As he brought his weaponry to quad they started to slightly juke and jink, thinking that it could scare away their tail for fear of shooting his wingman…They were dead wrong. Furious opened a shot that penetrated right into the center of the bomber and it exploded sending shrapnel to all sides lightly crippling the other bomber which gave furious enough time to finish it off. “Thanks for the save Furious.” Prozac said. “Anytime, wouldn’t want to see that craft hurt, rumor has it you “Borrowed with intention not to give back” over three million credits from Castin to buy it before he left Freedom.” Furious said. “Uhhhhhhh I have no idea what your talking about.” Prozac said slyly. Furious laughed “Sure ya don’t.” He said. Prozac grabbed the comm and rubbed his fingers on it “cant hear you not coming in well.” Prozac said. Oddball, Bones, Supafly and Gecko were chalking up nice kills and the last four bombers surrendered. “Well done group but we aren’t out of it yet and as a matter of fact I see the Objective lets move.” The two formation split up and as fast as they could accelerated towards the objective. Some were returning fire and Longshot to a snapshot at someone but missed the intended target and took out a man behind it. Kraka spoke up “Eight seconds be prepared to jump.” he said. Gear looked towards Castin “Hey Castin what’s the objective once we get in?” he asked. Castin yelled at him “KILL AS MANY AS YOU CAN AND SURVIVE AS LONG AS POSSIBLE YOU NEEDED ME TO TELL YOU THAT?” Castin replied. “Man needs sleep I guess.” Gear said. “I heard that.” Castin said making gear shake his head, he forgot to turn the frequency to off. Suddenly the turret fire ceased but trooper fire started to pour down on them. Gavin came to a stop at the wall and with as much force as he could muster, jumped up high with the force and ignited his lightsabre before he landed on the platform, cutting two troopers in half and deflected fire killing three. As he looked to the side he saw a heavy gunner group move up the ramp, making Gavin raise his arm and force pushed them right off the thirty foot catwalk. Soon three fourths of BA was inside their designated part of the facility and Gavin noticed Castin MAD doing nicely on their side. “TAKE THE COURTYARD.” Kraka said. Soon All of BA was charging down the catwalks but when they turned the corner they met up and almost opened fire on MAD. “How the hell did you get here so fast?” Kraka said. “MAD doesn’t waste time on catwalks, you’d be amazed on how a smooth thirty foot drop can feel.” Castin said. Kraka spoke up sarcastically. “Ohh I know I do it all the time, nothing like it YOU PEOPLE ARE INSANE.” he said. Castin analyzed the situation. “ok we have 2 E-Web guns on top, have Longshot and Fish engage NOW.” Castin ordered. Kraka made a hand movement to the two and as fish took a kneeling position and Longshot took a standing position Kraka and Castin made cover fire for the two while they took the shots Fish’s target went down smooth but Longshot’s target, at the last second decided to turn, although it was a clean headshot the E Web jammed and as the trooper fell to the floor the weapon still fired. “That E-Web is possessed.” Razorbac said as he leaned himself up against the door on one of the turrets as Anakin applied a “ghost key…roughly meaning two ounces of high explosive on the padlock. The thing made a loud snap and the two darted in and caught a glimpse at the unarmed gunners. “Do we really need to tell you what to do?” Anakin said sarcastically. Less than a second later the two dropped to their knees with hands in the air. “Good little Imps.” Razor said as he knocked them both out with the butt of his rifle. “Get them detained we got three more to do.” Castin lunged behind a crate with Kaci in tow. When they got behind he asked her. “I hope you still have my blaster.” Kaci smiled and showed it to him. “good, now stay here and shoot anything that’s dressed white that comes your way.” He said as he lunged back into the fight. His rebel repeater rifle was running low on ammunition, but he could have just as well started using it as a club since the Imps were in fact that close to them. Gavin was having a marvelous time using his light saber and only shot one person since they invaded the compound. As he took a swing he caught a glimpse of something in his eyes in a window on the main building pointing at him. “SNIP…” He began to yell but a blaster streak caught him in the shoulder, had he not used the force it would have been the chest. He fell to the side and took cover “ARRRRGGHHHH.” he yelled and Noticed Link run over to him with his medical supplies and landed next to him. “Not that bad, I’m going to give you a pain killer and a bandage and not even worry about Bacta.” Link said as he took out a needle and injected it into the wound and then started to bandage it. Longshot saw the streak and traced it back to the window and took a charged shot that nearly disintegrated the sniper. “Enemy numbers are falling.” Gear said as he looked around to corner to see a pathway of dead imperials. Freaye looked out from the vent and saw a man and a woman behind a crate, examining a blaster pistol and then it was only the woman. This was an opportunity not to pass up. He unhooked the vent silently and once he got out he had little trouble attacking. He took the woman by the hair and took her pistol and threw it to the ground and went for his and stuck it to her head. “Don’t move.” He ordered. Riker and Gladin ran across the corner and when they saw the imp with the hostage they both reacted by raising their guns. “Shoot me and you kill her NOW BACK AWAY.” The nervous Commander ordered. Riker spoke up. “Can’t do that not going to do that.” Riker said as he and Gladin took a step back. The Commander started to shake, he wasn’t as brave as he thought he was . Suddenly Gear and Castin ran across the corner startling the Commander. Castin watched in horror as his reaction turned deadly, Freaye’s hand clenched and in a second, Kaci fell to the floor limp. “NOOOOOOOOOOO.” he screamed with rage and in a split seconds timing brought his rifle up and placed one good shot into the mans skull, but Castin Kept firing until the man was on the floor. Castin dropped his gun and ran towards Kaci’s body but was tackled by Riker and Gear. “Get a hold of yourself Castin.” Gear said as Castin tried to force himself past and then he himself collapsed. He couldn’t grasp what had happened but in a second Kaci’s life was over. Gladin walked up to the body and flipped her over gently and pressed his hands on her eyes and pressed down shutting them and picked up Castins other Blaster. By the time he walked over Castin had regained himself but not by much. “Sir….I am sorry, but heres your other blaster.” Gladin said as he slowly handed it to Castin. Castin looked down and shut his eyes and shook his head as he took it. “What’s our status?” Castin asked. “We’ve taken the Rancor pit, two wounded…..one casualty.” Gear said. Kraka walked over to Castin and wondered what was going on. “hey Cas thy the…” Kraka was about to ask when Riker covered his mouth and whispered into his ear making him shift over to see Kaci. Kraka shook his head angrily and patted Castin on the shoulder. “Come I’ll help you get the body into the building, our forces just cleared it out and we now have complete control.” Kraka said and paused for a moment and started moving slowly behind Castin. Kraka, Gear, Riker, and Gladin followed suit and they all picked up the body of Kaci, they all knew they made it that far because of her and if she did not tag alone they wouldn’t have made it past the first skirmish. They walked into the building were the rest of GF stood and couldn’t believe what they were seeing. As they set her lifeless body down and Link put a blanket over her the group could hear moans of sorrow and they all started taking their hats off in respect. Anakin walked over and kneeled before her body and lowered his head and started to sing. “When I’m taken from the battle let me go in peace Let my worries go ohh please let them cease. Take me gently and lay me down to sleep With the angels in heaven I will sing deep Ohh when I am taken from the galaxy It’s the most tragic thing that some will see Ohh when I’m taken don’t be sad Because I’m in a place where you should be glad.” Anakin finished up. As he stood up to his surprise everyone pitched in and repeated the song. Then one by one they went to securing the compound and checking for pockets and Kraka, Gear, and Castin made it to the prisoners. They all looked in awe at them and no one knew what to say. They got to a large Comm unit and Kraka took the honors. “I am Krakaboo from the New Republic Navy we have now secured the compound and in a matter of hours you will be free.” He said. Suddenly the place was filled with roars of voices with blessings and thankings as many waved their hands in the air out of the cell bars. “Now for your safety you will remain inside the facility to prevent harm.” By the time Kraka finished with that one he could barely hear himself think, they wanted out severely and Anakin ran as fast as he could down the hall and met up with them “Sir we have good news and…pretty bad news.” He said. Castin sighed “ok good news first.” he said. “The NRN fleet has been scoring a nice victory but one ship was trashed so far, a pirate ship, and Prozac’s squad has just scored a victory against incoming Bombers which brings us to our bad news.” Anakin said. Gear swallowed down the dirt he had been choking on all day. “The imps are throwing all they got at us aren’t they?” Gear said. Anakin inhaled deeply. “About three thousand total units within the next hour, but we have an advantage, its getting dark in two hours that will postpone their heavier equipment.” Anakin said. Castin slammed his fist into the wall. “Twenty against three thousand, odds I would really like to reverse.” he said as he looked up at the prisoners and got an odd look on his face and walked up to the comm. “This is Commander Castin Tainer of the New Republic Navy, we are expecting a huge counter attack on us and we are short of men and women, if you think you are in good fighting shape please step up to the front of the cells. The rest of you stay put and hopefully we will all get out of here alive.” Castin said. Gear couldn’t believe this and asked Castin “What in the name of the sith, these people are prisoners, not fighters.” Gear said. Castin looked at the ones standing in front of the cell. “A defenseless animal will strike with whatever its got, these people haven’t been free in who knows how long, I would fight to the last round in my gun if I was them.” Castin said as he took a data key and walked around and released a total of seventy five prisoners. “LINE UP IN FORMATION.” Castin yelled. Pretty soon the prisoners were in a line and facing Kraka, Castin, Anakin and Gear. “Listen up everyone, we intend to put you in harms way, anyone who has trouble with that can take a step back and we will put you back in your cell and you wont be thought a coward or afraid, to be honest we are all afraid. I cant make any promises that you will survive this, but keep your head down and your gun pointed at anything colored white that moves, and I will be seeing you on the evac shuttles. Castin took a weapon from behind him and raised it up. “This will be your weapon, It is an Imperial J67 Heavy repeater rifle, the imperials have rooms full of these with sufficient ammo. It fires fast so you must be conservative in ammo, for those of you without the J67 you will get the E-11 Blaster carbine widely used by Imperial infantry, now not the most accurate by any means but powerful so just wait for your target to come to you. Now our air support is slowly keeping the Imperial advance at bay so Anakin, Gear, Kraka And a few others will teach you all how to handle your weaponry. Now when you exit through that door.” Castin said as he took a deep breath and pointed towards it. “You will be issued your rifle and spare ammunition, use it wisely.” he said as Anakin Kraka stepped forward. “And may the force be with you, Right Face and MARCH.” He said and the prisoners did so and were eager to grab their weapons. Gear slowly walked up the plank and sat down on the ledge and watched the sun go down, that was one of the few tactical advantages this planet had, only eight hours of sunlight a day so they wont hit with their heavy stuff for fear they might get ambushed, the disadvantage was storm troopers could advance just that much easier. As he looked to his side Castin was walking up the catwalk and sat down next to him. “Hey Gear how are ya?” He asked. Gear sighed “All things considered I’m doing alright.” Gear said. Castin smiled and scratched at his armor plate underneath his uniform and remembered the Cigars LongShot gave to him and took them out and handed one to gear. Gear took it and lit it with a survival lighter and handed it to Castin and he did the same. “So how are the prisoners faring with their new toys?” Gear asked. Castin laughed a little. “The boys are already making a wager how many friendly fire accidents were gonna have.” Castin said. Gear laughed and took a look at them. Gear turned his head “So who’s gonna be your XO?” Gear asked. Castin scratched his chin and thought for a second and then spoke up. “I’ve seen Pixel around lately and I am impressed with him so when I get back if he wants the job its his.” Castin said. “INCOMMING.” someone yelled making everyone stand at attention. “LongShot report.” Kraka said. “Affirmative we have got incoming and it looks like they’re setting up at the tree line.” Longshot said. Castin pulled out his micro binoculars and took a look “We got two groups of five AT-ST units and roughly fifty troopers each accompanying them. Get twenty five of the prisoners to the left side and the rest to the right and have ground forces take the center.” Castin ordered. Gear ran off down the catwalk and Castin took another look and then got his Comm out. “Prozac your squad still available? Its party time down here.” Castin said. Prozac came back with the reply. “We are refueling aboard the righteous, I will send YJK to assist.” Prozac replied. “Roger how’s the situation up there?” Castin asked. “The other super star destroyer and one Destroyer is all that’s left but they are safeguarding the other SSD while it is trying to reboot its systems but with three fourths of its firepower destroyed it might as well keep its power off.” Prozac said. “Ground Forces This is Heero along with Master, we are the only two who can assist at the moment give us your priority targets and we shall do what we can.” Heero said. Castin spoke again into his comm. “We have a load of enemy units gathering near the treeline near the Rancor pit take them out first and well contact you in case of support.” Castin said. “Roger we are five minutes away hold tight.” Heero said. “Were not going anywhere.” Castin said very sarcastically. “Ok Master the troops down there need our help, lets not keep them waiting lets go.” Heero said. “Roger my missile bank is full and I am well fueled.” Master replied. The two locked their S foils so gain a little extra speed to the troopers. “Heero I have seven VERY large blips on my radar coming into view in fifteen seconds to our left.” Master said. “Looks like AT-AT signatures S foils in attack position, fly by first and get a good view first.” Heero said. The two came into view and Seven large humps appeared out of the canopy. “We got seven AT-AT units in attack position, engage at will but stay above them to increase your survival Master.” Heero said. “Hey they don’t call me Master for nothing.” he said as he linked his lasers to quad and lined the reticule to the lead AT-AT and put two quad blasts into the head. The first shot penetrated the skull of the AT unit and the second shot totally obliterated it. “Nice shot Master.” Heero said. Master inverted his craft and flew under the collapsing AT-AT units and flew back above the canopy. Heero aimed his reticule to another AT’s front leg and fired upon it. The leg melted right off the frame and the next step it took was its last. “Ok that’s two down now lets fry the rest.” Heero said as he linked his weaponry to single torpedo and lined two up and when the lock went red fired the missile into the front AT-AT. The gargantuan Land vehicle rocked and toppled over onto another. The domino affect also got a couple of smaller units and the Anti Air defense that was being pesky to Master. “Nice shooting Heero.” Master said as he lined up another quad shot and with two more red bursts slagged the skull and as it was falling he took the opportunity to switch to missiles. “Master end your run you cant do much more at that speed.” Heero warned but wasn’t paid any attention to. Before he launched his missile he noticed the treeline up ahead. “No time to play it safe they will be within firing range in minutes.” Master said as he launched and tried to pull up but the gravity kept pulling down. All he could do was veer right into another AT-AT unit. “Ohh hell why NOT.” Master said as he put it in full throttle and as he ejected saw his X-Wing act like a giant spear that toppled the AT-AT. The gravity kept pulling at him and he thought he would pass out but he noticed he had cleared the treeline by a ways and was on a crash course near the objective Rancor Pit. As he hit the force of the landing rendered him unconscious and he didn’t know how long he was dazed before he saw light and a few voices along with blaster fire. “KEEP FIRING.” Kraka said as he brought his repeater over a line of storm troopers. Heero did his best and kept a good portion of the AT-ST’s at bay but a few got through. “WHERES THE DISRUPTORS?” Fish yelled as Gladin rushed across the catwalk. “COME ON THERE GAINING.” Fish said. Gladin kept running faster and faster but suddenly a red laser blast caught Gladin in the upper left part of his hip near his stomach. Gladin struggled to stand up but failed and fell of the catwalk twenty five feet “DAMNIT SNIPER, SNIPER.” Fish said as he turned around and saw a group of troopers on the top of a hill. Before he had a chance to fire he saw a salvo of blaster fire strike them and then there was no more threat but a welcome gift. “GROUND FORCES THIS IS HOPE AND ECNERWAL. WE ARE COMMIGN IN WITH BATTLETANKS KEEP UP THE FIGHT.” He yelled over the comm. Suddenly fifteen battle tanks appeared over the ridge and started using the mortar cannons on the AT units. Castin and Kraka looked up and cheered and for a few moments felt relief until fish ran up to the two of them. The three ran down as quick as possible and they saw Gladin still alive in pain and agony. “Get him inside.” Fish yelled. The three picked him up and rushed him into the main building. “I’m hit badly?” Gladin said through the pain. “No your not Gladin don’t look at it your fine soldier.” Fish said as he struggled to stop the bleeding and pulled Kraka over to him. “The blast caught a major vessel and the main vessel part didn’t cauterize he is bleeding to death, and he has broken his spine in the fall.” Fish said. Kraka walked over to Castin and whispered into his ear and Castin ran over and helped apply pressure but was stopped. “HEY LOOK AT ME.” Fish said. couldn’t look up but tried talking to them. Suddenly he kicked and he was dead. “GLADIN WAKE UP SOLDIER.” Kraka said as he started to shake him. Fish pulled him aside and brought out another blanket and put Gladin over it and they put him next to Kaci. Castin was furious and punched a wall as he walked back outside into the dwindling fight. “Status?” He asked Ion. “The imps just pulled out, probably are going to plan a night attack.” Ion said. “Was that Gladin?” Anakin said worried. “Affirmative.” Castin tried to get the lump out of the throat. “He’s dead.” He finished up. Everyone couldn’t believe that including Castin and Kraka. Castin took the silence and walked and Grabbed the Comm unit from Razorbac and called hope in. “How you holding up sir?” He asked. “We haven’t been touched so far but the imps are trying to sneak up on us so we just installed some turrets into the surrounding area. If you need any requests just phone in.” Hope said. “Yeah blast the treeline with mortar fire just for good measure.” Castin said. “You got it, OPEN FIRE.” Hope said. The fifteen tanks opened up on the treeline making a magnificent display of explosions in the night. It was getting very dark so they could see the explosions very well. The nineteen troopers watched silently as the bombardment commenced. Heero strafed it with his lasers and Castin walked back into the main building to Master. “How you holding up?” Castin asked him. Master looked up and readjusted his bad leg slowly. “I hear explosions out there what’s going on?” He asked. “Just a routine safety measure, make sure they wont try anything for a bit.” He said. Suddenly Das cracked in on his Comm. “WHOEVER IS DOWN THERE PICK UP.” Das said. Castin picked up the Comm and replied “This is Castin come in what’s the matter?” “Commander, we just seen fifteen large troop carriers leave the ionized SSD, how they made it through your bombardment we have no idea but they are already setting down we are planning to land inside the camp and get the prisoners out.” Das said. Castin shook his head. “Negative there’s no landing pad that can fit a transport craft of that size.” Castin said thinking hard. “We can blow a forty foot wall on the opposite side to make way for a shuttle that should give us enough room but I’ll need everyone on the defensive.” Castin said. “I don’t care how you guys do it but those hostages need immediate evacuation.” Das said. Yeah I think were all in desperate need of evacuation. Castin thought to himself. “I’ll see what we can do over and out.” Castin changed the frequency of the Comm to Hope. “Hope you around?” “You needed to ask that?” Hope said sarcastically. “We have fifteen large troop vessels landing down and are going to plan another offensive on the base how well defended are you?” Castin asked. “Fifteen eh? I can have another twenty sentry guns setup around the perimeter and a few more mines.” Hope said. How much has he got already I dare not ask. Castin said to himself. “Ok be careful you’re a big target.” “Thanks over and out.” Hope said.. “Sit tight.” Castin said to Master as he reached into his munitions bags and searched for any explosives big enough for taking down a forty foot section of explosive then it hit him. Although very dangerous he can pile a five foot wide by two foot thick pile of the most volatile explosives and ignite it with prima cord that might have enough kick to knock down the wall. Hope looked to one of the tank techs. “I’m gonna go setup more defensive platforms.” Hope said as he grabbed as many sentries as he could and got out of the tank and started setting them under logs, on as much camouflage as he could and then some. As he got back in the tank he took a look at the radar over the treeline. It had grown three times bigger. “Castin I hope you guys are ready for a party.” Hope said. Just as he said that a large explosion rocked the other end of the compound. “Yeah were just equally ready to get the hell out of here.” Castin said. Hope shook his head “He has a way of doing things.” He said to himself. “Hey Hope were gonna be evacuating in the near future how about you guys?” Castin asked. “Affirmative we have our own set coordinates for getting off this rock.” Hope replied as he looked at the radar and almost dropped the comm. “INCOMMING.” Hope said. “Gunner nail those guys.” Hope said. In seconds the entire squadron of tanks were roaring with mortar fire. They couldn’t see what they were shooting at but the impacts had lead them to believe they were still on target. Castin put his detonator back in the bag and came up to the place he was designated to help guard. “Its darker than hell out there can we get a flare?” Kraka said. Castin patted Anakin on the shoulder “Prep a Flare.” He asked. Anakin attached a flare to the end of his gun and pulled the trigger the bright burning object soared into the air and exposed hundreds of Imperials. “WHOA…FIRE.” Kraka screamed as they let loose on the imperials, they managed to sneak up close on the POW camp. The prisoners that were armed with the repeater guns were relentless in their concussion shots but surprisingly were pretty accurate. Soon there was no need for a flare, the explosions from Hopes mortar men and the incandescence of blaster fire illuminated the battle field. Castin popped in a concussion shot right into a group of twenty people and watched how the blast made them fly in many directions. Kraka was having fun doing the same but soon his shoulder was soar from launching them to often. “We need aerial bombardment into the front surrounding area over.” Fish said into his comm at the Righteous. “Negative to much risk of hitting friendly units fire support denied.” A woman said over the comm. “LISTEN HERE LADY THERES A GOOD CHANCE THEIR WONT BE A FRIENDLY BASE TO HIT IF YOU DON’T POUR DOWN ON THE FRONT SURROUNDING ARE NOW.” Fish yelled into the comm obviously very frustrated. “Fire support acknowledged place beacon so we can begin bombardment.” The woman said. Fish armed his beacon and fired it into the oncoming imps hitting one with such force it knocked him off his feet. Looking up he seen red and green blasts begin to pour down. “EVERYONE DOWN EVERYONE DOWN NOW NOW NOW.” He yelled. Everyone ducked as the first shots hit down. Fish looked through a visor in the wall and saw the blasts pour down on the imperials. If this was a month ago this would have torn him apart but being here a month and experiencing death and harsh reality had put a damper on all the emotions of the ground forces. The thought ran through his mind about the people down there, they might have been good friends with each other if there wasn’t a war. To late to think about it he thought to himself as the bombardment ceased. “Attention Ground forces get the hostages ready we have a transport craft in transit, not a very big one but the others are being used on prisoner transport on the other ships but we can grab as many as we can.” Castin walked over to Longshot “What’s the prisoner head count?” He asked. “Intelligence was way off there’s less than four hundred.” LS replied. “Ok there sending one of the smaller transport craft to start evacuation all hell is gonna break loose soon and the odds aren’t in our favor in case you haven’t seen that as of yet.” “That will take hours those things cant hold anymore than fifty-five.” Longshot said. “Then get some men to collect fifty five prisoners we can’t sit here and debate it.” Castin replied. “Ok I’ll get some men to take care of it the targets are to rich for a sniper to take up.” Longshot said with a smile. “Keep up the excellent job.” Castin said as he walked away. The night was long and the fight was continuous and only two drop ships were able ot make it in to rescue only a total of twenty percent of the prisoners. Ammo was running low and tensions were mounting between both the ground forces and imperial forces alike. Castin walked to the top and peered out over Anakin. “Anything?” “No nothing has moved for twenty minutes I’m glad that ammo barge came in we probably wouldn’t have made it with the resistance gone now.” Anakin said. Castin took a look and surveyed the damage. The ground was strewn with the bodies of dead imperials, some died right as they left cover and some even died right at the POW camp walls. Castin wiped his sweat off is face and patted Anakin shoulder “The place is gonna be swamped with snipers soon might wanna lower yourself.” Castin said. “Castin, Kraka come in I repeat Castin, Kraka Come in?” Hope said over the Comm. Castin didn’t waste a second to turn it on and heard Kraka already on the third like. “What’s up Hope any good news?” Castin asked. “Castin this is the best news your probably gonna hear during an event like this the enemy is now down ot one thousand more troops and they are assembling and preparing for an attack but are in the lower stages, I’m gonna send my tank platoon over to break their backs I assume you want to join?” “Were already on them.” Kraka said over the line. “Roger we will have better results if we use our speeders for fast attacks.” “Ok were assembling now get moving.” Hope said as he put the Comm down. “ALL TANKS PREPARE TO KICK SOME IMPS.” Hope yelled. “OK EVERYONE GATHER ROND GET OVER HERE NOW.” Kraka said with Castin doing the same. The rest of the group assembled and gathered in a circle around the commanders. Castin flicked on a tactical map that showed the Imperial Positions. “As you can see the artillery, the air strikes and our general attacks have dwindled down the imperials to about fifteen hundred troops.” “Thank the force for that.” Someone in the back said. “I couldn’t agree more now Hope and I hope to break them to pieces.” “And how will we do that were not even twenty anymore.” Ion said. “The Imperials don’t expect us to make any type of offensives and I don’t even think they know how many tanks we have up there…to tell the truth not even I know that. But Hope is already on his way and were gonna supply backup…Prozac is up there with a Y-Wing Circling about and a full payload…now the armored convoy is about one hundred strong so as soon as we leave I’m going ot order him to strike the AT units to help the tanks out a bit. Then we are going to rush the remaining imperial troopers as soon as Prozac puts another bomb raid right in the center of them. Then it will be chaos, pure an utter chaos but we will have the surprise most of them are tired and battle fatigued so lets make their weaknesses our strengths.” Castin said. “I think your suicidal.” Ion said. “How long did it take you to discover that admiral?” Castin replied. “I’m really in the mood to kill right now Castin…” Ion said before e was cut off. “Good then lets get moving plenty of targets to kill LETS MOVE.” Castin said. The team assembled on their speeders and Castin called in to Prozac. “GET OFF THE COMM WITH SAPPHYRE AND GIVE US A HAND WILL YA?” Castin said teasingly. “Hahaha very funny Commander.” Prozac replied. “I thought it was, now to business what’s your bomb capacity right now?” Castin said. Prozac sighed “I’m at full load waiting to lighten my craft give me a coordinate.” Prozac said. “Punch in and find where the enemy is gathering and take out as many AT units as you can but save a couple for the troopers go now.” Castin said. “You got it Commander.” Prozac said as he flew by the POW camp and pulled a three-sixty. “OK LETS MOVE.” Castin said. Then with the speed of lightning they were off. “Hope ETA to you is two minutes I got air support to help soften the AT units and some troopers.” “Great lets move and may the force be with you.” Hope said. The speeders all took formation. “All speeders link your on board blasters to single fire were not engaging ships so our blasts don’t have to be as effective.” Kraka said. He received a chorus of replies and then he looked at his radar. “Forty five seconds until all hell is unleashed.” He thought to himself. Suddenly Prozac’s hips flew by and dropped five bombs onto the Imperial troopers. “Not even that.” Kraka said as he pressed on. “ALL UNITS ATTACK.” Hope shouted. The bombs that dropped took care of twenty of the AT units and even scored the last AT-AT kill of the fight. Their survival chances tripled with that gargantuan out of the way. Thirty Tanks popped up out of cover and started mortaring anything they could get locked on. Hope had to use his force abilities to drain the constant Drumming of the Mortars out of his ears so he wouldn’t be deafened. “I don’t care if were outnumbered if we don’t succeed were all dead anyways so keep pressing on.” Hope said to the droid next to him. The tanks made a wedge formation and shot anything that came to oppose them and quickly the remaining AT units clicked on the surrender tab that rendered the unit useless. “You see there scared out of their wits.” Hope said to the droid next to him. “What’s scared out of wits sir?” the droid driver said. “Shut up and drive.” Hope replied. Suddenly nineteen Speeders drove past the Wreckage of the tank battle and Castin was impressed to see only one friendly loss. “There’s the Imps EVERYONE FIRE.” Castin said. Suddenly a chorus of fire rained down on the imperials. The surprise attack worked and the troopers were caught off guard and without a suitable means of defense. Castin slid his bike to a stop hitting two troopers and jumped off and grabbed his dual blasters and fired. “KILLEM ALLLLLLL.” Kraka could hear the MAD battle cry roared over near Castins group. Kraka slid his bike to a stop and got behind cover and let loose a salvo of Blasts that were catching troopers all around. “What’s wrong with your saber?” Anakin asked as he crouched near Castin. “Ohh nothing just these things needed a workout.” Castin said as he made each and every shot count, not hard considering the population of white troopers. “MAD FORM A DEFENSE GRID ON MY POSITION FULL 360 PROTECTION.” Castin ordered. Castin then noticed he was the only one in the group with ammo still available. Castin reloaded his pistols “COME GET SOME.” He yelled as he shot several more troopers. Then a small but widened circle was gathered and was doing a nice job of keeping the troopers at bay. “Remember Ambria?” Anakin said. “Cant forget it.” Castin replied. “Those were the days huh?” Anakin said with a laugh as he deflected a shot that struck the sender knocking him ot the ground. “Yeah I just wish these guys would quit like they did.” Castin said still shooting. Castins blasters made two more shots then went *click*. Castin holstered his weapons and drew his saber and started deflecting shots. Hopes units had come around the bend and were using the automated laser cannons on the troopers instead of the Mortar cannons. “There breaking up lets up the ante.” Castin said. “CHARGE.” Anakin said without hesitation. The rest followed and the battle cry was enormous for only having ten people scream it. Anakin were side by side. They had become almost brothers while Castin was XO for Wraith but now they were better than brothers, they knew each others reactions and could read them like a book. Anakin cut off a troopers arm and force pushed him to the side while Castin used a power swing to cut a man vertically in half. “Look the Command Tower is over there HOPE BLAST IT TO A CRATER.” Kraka said as he pushed his unit up with Castins. “Roger FIRE IN THE HOLE.” Hope yelled as one mortar round hit the Center and leveled it. “KEEP GOING KEEP GOING.” Castin yelled as he noticed Anakin Force push four troopers off a building roof. “Well done.” Castin said as he picked up the repeater rifle from a dead trooper. “Not even used…until now.” Castin said as he laid down fire onto a group of incoming troopers. Meanwhile Longshot had enough on his mind in concerns of sniper fire. It had become second nature in his time in ground forces to recognize potential sniper nests and neutralize any sniper inside it. In the years he trained it was now instinct more than training and he was glad that it finally paid off. Shot after shot dead sniper after dead sniper he was proving ot be instrumental in the Ground Forces advancement. Suddenly a shot Rang out that caught Ion in the leg making him fall to the ground in pain. Longshot swung over and instantly knew where the sniper was and vaporized him with a well placed shot and ran over ot assist his comrade in arms. “Where are you hit?” Longshot said. Breathing hard Ion ripped open his pants leg to show a hole burned into his lower calf. “That’s not so bad didn’t even hit bone hold on.” Longshot said as he applied a Bacta Bandage on his leg and helped him to a corner. “I got to push on with the group.” LongShot said. “Feel like assisting?” Ion looked up and extended his hand. Longshot smiled and took it and helped him upwards. “What about the POW camp?” Fish said to G0thic. “That’s being guarded by two of hopes tanks nothing will get past those.” G0thic said as he kept pushing on. The entire Ground forces turned a corner with guns firing and time slowed down. Every remaining trooper lined up executioner style was preparing to take aim. Castin slowed down and raised his rifle as a large Shadow past over him and started to fire down immense blaster shots. The Imps got preoccupied with whatever it was but Castin couldn’t move until Anakin Shook him. “ITS ECNERWALS SQUAD YEAHAAAAAA.” Anakin said. Sure enough Ecnerwal was on the gunner side of a troop transport with his entire squad beginning to repel downwards. In seconds time the Remaining Imps were either dead or had their hands raised upwards. Everyone started cheering as the rest of Ecnerwal Phoenix Squadron Came down. Castin ran over to greet his Jedi master. “Great timing.” Castin said. “Haven’t I always said to take your time? You see why now?” Ecnerwal said as he nudged Castins shoulder and laughed jokingly. The two looked over the scenery where remaining Imp troopers and Officers were being escorted. “What about the prisoners?” Castin asked. “We got them a few minutes after you left and turned the camp to rubble and picked up the tanks there now safely on board separate ships to accommodate all POWS…I must say I am amazed you people pulled this off.” Ecnerwal said. Castin reached into his pocket and was amazed to see his cigars still in good condition and handed one to Ecnerwal. Two Weeks Later Coruscant
The corridor was Long and empty filled with Cyan colored circles on the walls indicating Graves. This one read the name Kaci Starchaser, her real name and Gladin Gurdof. “You served me and your squad well Gladin and you upheld the tradition of ground forces, Kaci although you were only a civilian we would all be lined up on this wall that honors you. You hold more honor in your soul than many will ever know. I salute you both and Hope to see you again…but not soon.” Castin said as he took a step forward and snapped a militarily precise salute. Castin dressed in his officers uniform stood there for a minute until he stopped saluting, put his officers hat between his arms and walked slowly down the corridor.

The crisis on Ossus, or The Ossus Saga as we came to know it as was the bloodiest ground battle ever fought in the history of the New Republic and is studied at several military command centers, rebel and imperial alike. Two days later the Ground Forces who fought the bloody last battle buried each and every one of the imperials who fell there and were given a proper last rites. That last battle became known as “Hells Stand” for its gruesome outcome. No one who was there will ever forget the courage and might the Imperials and the Republics Refusal to leave any man or woman behind and willingness to sacrifice themselves if necessary.

The End.
Mike Myers ☼§☼