Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 3683953" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 500: New OrdersIt was Centerpoint Station that had fired the shot and obliterated both the Hapan and the Yuuzhan Vong fleets at Fondor. It had, apparently, also taken out a good chunk of one of Fondor’s moons and grazed the planet’s atmosphere. That had never been a part of the original plan, but then again, the Vong were supposed to have attacked Corellia, then Centerpoint would have been use to create a massive gravity well and trap them in the system. It meant there was a large team of technicians and soldiers aboard the station, waiting for the right moment to spring the trap.    But the moment never came, and they soon got the report that the Vong attacked Fondor, instead. There were, apparently, a pair of Jedi aboard the station who were meant to do the controlling of it all. But someone, who was left unnamed, probably due to a lack of intel, aimed the station towards Fondor and fired it.    Rulae placed the datapad with the report on his desk and sat back in his chair. Some idiot didn’t take the time to at least aim. Now the Hapan were out of the war after just having committed to it. They didn’t seem to be placing blame, at least, but there was nothing they could do now with the majority of their fleet completely destroyed. The only good news in all of the reports for the day was that Fondor was still in the hands of the New Republic. Apparently the Vong were impressed that the New Republic would fire through their own forces and retreated to reevaluate their tactics.    “Sir...” Rea, who was standing on the other side of his office next to Adria, spoke up softly. They were both still in their flight suits, though they looked to have removed most of the life support parts before reporting to him.    He had asked them both to come to his office for a reason, and it wasn’t one he liked. Rulae let out a sigh then raised his head to bring his two large, red eyes to look over the other pilots, “The recovery ships have brought in all of the pilots they could find. Loro was...was not among them.”    “But I saw him eject!” Adria’s temper matched her hair, fiery. If it was any other situation on any other day, Rulae would have reprimanded her for the outburst. But not today...“And he probably did,” Rulae simply nodded before raising a hand up to rub his blue skull, “There were reports from some of the other squadrons of medium sized Vong ships picking up EV pilots.”    Rea’s head-tails twitched noticeably at that, “You think he was captured?”    Rulae nodded, “It would not be the first time they have done this. It seems that the Vong have been doing this more and more recently. I couldn’t tell you why, though.”    Neither of the other two pilots could find any words to respond to that. There were only three of them left. A forth of a squadron. There weren’t enough free pilots in Starfighter Command to fill that much of a squadron and they all knew it. The question of what would happen next was in all of their minds, including Rulae’s, but there wasn’t any answer and none of them bothered to speak it.    “So now what?” Adria asked with a hint of annoyance in her strongly accented voice. Her arms were crossed and she was giving Rulae a critical look, but he knew by now that this was simply how she reacted and he couldn’t blame her. Rulae really wanted to find someone to punch about right now, too.    At least he had an answer to the question, “Well, believe it or not but we’ve actually got orders. Its not exactly what I would have expected but apparently Command has decided we’re good for more than just flying,” he paused a moment to grab a second datapad off of his desk and give it another glance so he didn’t get anything wrong, “During the battle there was an internal attack here on the Gemstone. Admiral thought it was Vong and sent the Marines. They found five dead bodies in one of the medical wards, all killed by blasters. The computers had been searched and sensitive information had been removed. Not long after a ship left the hangar...there was nothing to stop it in the middle of the battle, and one of the sensor operators reported it jumped to hyperspace not long after.”    “So we’re supposed to be a police force now?” surprisingly, it was Rea displaying her displeasure at this assignment. Adria was looking annoyed, though, so they were obviously both feeling the same about it.    “It would seem that way,” Rulae could do nothing but nod, “The report doesn’t say what information was taken, but that probably means its classified and dangerous. We’ve got a name to go on, too, and a ship. The second the battle was over the Admiral was intelligent enough to check all personnel aboard and figured out who was missing. We’ll be tracking a Miraluka named Tokarr Anansin. He was attached to Hawkbat Squadron as a crew chief and the ship he took was their support ship, a small transport called the Rustbucket.”    Adria rolled her eyes, “Rustbucket? You’ve got to be kidding me.”    Rulae shook his head and was tempted to hand her the datapad, “I wish I was, but that’s what the report says. We need to get moving now. We have a vector he left on and the only system that direction is Thyferra. So go get those flightsuits back on. We’re back in the air in ten minutes.”    The saluted, then left.    Rulae looked at the datapad in his hands again. He didn’t like this at all. It wasn’t the fact that they were being used to track down someone. That, he understood. For a squadron so low on pilots but with good experience, not to mention their commander now having a good bit of experience on the ground, this made sense despite feeling like a waste of their skill. It was what they were going after that bothered him.     A member of Starfighter Command stealing something from classified medical records and then going to Thyferra? That couldn’t be a coincidence. The planet was the hub of medicine in the galaxy, it was where bacta itself was produced. The fact that this Tokarr had shot five people to get it wasn’t exactly positive, either...and this was ignoring the question of how a member of Starfighter Command, especially a low ranking tech chief, got access to highly classified medical files.    “I have a bad feeling about this,” Rulae muttered to himself as he got out of his chair and went to get his flightsuit back on.</blockquote>

Verification