Alan munched down on the food whilst the briefing was going on.  It wasn’t exactly the best food he had ever tasted but he certainly was enjoying the champagne.  He downed a second glass and thought to himself why aren’t all briefings like this.

After the briefing was over, Alan decided to head out and try to find the bar within the Dominion.  He knew the ship had to have one, locating it however would be another thing entirely.

Alan thought back to the briefing and remembered that Riqimo had said that the Intelligence Officer that was onboard specialised in cold weather.  Great he thought to himself just what I need, to have my ass frozen again

Riqimo had told them that they could visit the quartermaster for any weapons that they might need.  Alan patted his hips and felt re-assured that both of his trusty DL-44 Heavy Blaster pistols were by his side.  He always had them with him whether on duty or not and he felt very comfortable with having them by his side.

Where the hell is the bar thought Alan as he wandered the halls of the Dominion.

Alan had been on the Dominion before and knew that there was a bar onboard somewhere but it had been quite a while since he had last been onboard and even then he had gotten lost.  Alan spotted a naval crewman approach him.

“Excuse me” said Alan, “can you direct me to the bar?”

“Certainly” he replied, “you go down that corridor, turn left, follow the hall until you come across the door with the red insignia on it, turn right, then two lefts and you should see it on your third right”.

“Thanks” said Alan.

“No problems” replied the crewman.

Alan watched him leave and thought to himself I am so lost right now

Joamer had left the ball early, he was still quite inebriated, but when the order to board the shuttles sounded he had made his way shakily to the hangar bay. Mumbling something about wine he stumbled into the nearest shuttle and sat down just as the boarding ramp raised, and the pilot lifted off.

Peering out of blurry eyes he noticed no other Wraith members present. Mumbling to himself he patted Lurk, his baby Strill gently as the shuttle lurched and began it's flight towards the Dominion.

"You should not bring that with you." Someone said a few minutes later.

Opening his eyes he starred at what seemed like a new recruit.

"You ever try to tell a Strill no?" Joamer rasped, his head began pounding loudly in his ears. "Specially when you have a hangover?"

"You Wraiths are all the same, bunch of drunken screw ups." The new recruit said angrily.

Snapping into sudden sobriety Joamer sat up and starred into the kids face. "Drunken screw ups? It's all a ploy, a clever disguise we use to keep people off guard. Do you really think we would go on a mission drunk? I would drop the attitude, private. Before, you get someone killed. This is not a game, and by the looks of you I would imagine this is your first time going on a mission of this magnitude."

Joamer sat back as the blackness of space filled the view ports.

"ETA to Dominion, three minutes." The comm crackled.

Leaning back Joamer whispered to Lurk "I think we are going to need some white paint."

"Why?" someone besides the private said.

Joamer smiled a truly evil smile, "It's a snow planet, and we Wraiths are meant to be ghosts."

Grinning to himself, he leaned back and said quietly "Yes, snow ghosts. It does have a nice ring to it."

Alan was happy when Lucky showed him the way to the bar.  Before he entered he glanced back down the corridor and thought to himself how did she figure out where this place was.

Alan ordered up a Corellian ale and watched in amazement as Lucky ordered herself up a pint of corellian whiskey.  He drank his ale as Lucky enjoyed her pint of whiskey.  In a way he was glad that she declined on another drink.  Another pint of whiskey and I’ll be carrying you to where Paladin is stationed thought Alan.

“I’m going to go and find out where Paladin is stationed” said Lucky.

“Ok” replied Alan, “I’m going to stay here for awhile”.

“Why does that not surprise me” replied Lucky, “just don’t get too drunk”.

“Me” said Alan as he pointed at his chest.

“Yes you” replied Lucky as she laughed and headed out of the bar.

If finding where Paladin is stationed is anywhere as complex as where the bar is, then maybe I will just stay here thought Alan.

The bar was quite dark and was still quite empty.  He was surprised that none of the other Paladin members had looked for it yet.  Maybe they are having the same trouble as I am in locating it he thought.

Finishing off a third ale, Alan finally decided to go and seek out the area that Paladin had been assigned to.  Maybe he could coax some of the squad to join him in the bar for a few drinks.

Exiting the bar, Alan glanced down the hall, both to the left and then to the right.  Which way did Lucky go again he thought to himself.  He decided to go left and thought that if he ever came across a naval officer he would suggest that they put up signs around this ship.

OOC:

I hereby declare the HSC Officially re-opened! Let's try and keep the filler down and focus on the mission. As such, any quote-posting will be deleted on sight.

8 Hours Later (11 Days, x hours, and x minutes from Zero)

Surface Marshall Cosmic sat in his quarters on the Dominion with his XO, Lieutenant General Rizzit discussing the best course of action for Anteevy depending on what the circumstances allowed for. Rizzit was talking with his superior of course, but he was also monitoring the viewscreens. Probe droids had been sent out around Anteevy and they had yet to get any readings back.

“….are loyal to Shantsa?”

“No chance of that Cos. He is dead along with all that followed him.”

“You rule out everything so quickly…one of these days I’ll be right.”

“Well, you are overdue….sir”

“You know…just cause we have a long history doesn’t mean you can keep taking shots at me”

Rizzit laughed. “Well, sorry. It’s just how I am. I tend to…”

The viewscreen closest to Rizzit started to broadcast a signal from one of their probe droids they sent out. An image displayed of Anteevy’s surface….crisp, slick ice with touches of snow but it was far and few between. It truly looked like an uninhabitable frozen wasteland except…there were parts of the surface that looked traveled upon. The droid must have picked up on this somehow because it kept following the path that supposedly looked travelled. That was when it came into sight…some people were riding tauntauns. At first glance they looked like bounty hunters the way they were dressed or possibly smugglers? The droid was keeping its distance and it was too far to tell for sure.

“Mercenaries.” Said Cosmic as he went over to look at another viewscreen. On another screen a speeder was travelling quickly through the terrain like it was fleeting for its rider’s life. The droid amazingly was able to keep right behind the speeder until it flew right into the side of an ice mountain as clear yet white as one has ever seen. That was where the bike disappeared. The droid that was following the tauntauns eventually caught up with the same droid that was following the speeder. It was on the opposite side of the mountain that the tauntaun disappeared into but it was the same one because the droids were broadcasting images of each other in the feedback.

“It seems they have a base there.” Rizzit observed.

“And there are at least two different groups.”

“Or one group using two methods to scout.”

“Either way…at least we know where they are now. Let’s call a briefing…again.”

The transmission terminated. The viewscreens just displayed all static.

“It also looks like someone doesn’t want us to know where they are” said Rizzit

***Sixty Minutes Later***

“Allright everyone so we are almost at Anteevy but we are going to be stopping outside the detection range. I want to be sure they do not know we are here.” Riqimo greeted everyone as they entered the room. He looked slightly more excited than usual which people began to take as a sign that the either had good news or had been hitting the bar…sometimes both even. “We deployed probe droids hours ago before we left our system as we wanted to make sure we had all of our information by the time we got there.”

That was when Riqimo’s comlink beeped. “You do? Great. See you then”

Riqimo shoved the comlink in his pocket and faced the company. “Apparently they just triangulated the location where their base is. They’ll be here shortly to explain it all.”

***Five Minutes Later***

Cosmic and Rizzit walked briskly into the room. They knew they had little time. Soon they would be in Anteevy. Cosmic had Rizzit talk while he stood silently and listened.

“Okay everyone…here’s the deal: In a snowmountain there is a base that can be entered nearly three different ways. Airspeeder, some sort of ground or repulsorlift vehicle, or on foot. Yes, Tauntauns count as on foot. Apparently there are two or three mercenary groups that have some tied in loyalty to Shantsa and our shoddy treatment of him from years ago. They are well stocked to last for months there and they are always scouting. They surely have a vendetta against us…the question is…WHY? Surely Shantsa cannot be our sole reason to have earned such malice? Only time will tell I suppose.”

“So…here is the plan: We will send you down via dropship as we do not want detection. You will be sent down with our Imperial Bobsleds to make life easier for you. They were modified since last we used them. They used to fit six to a sled and we split you up in groups. Fury modified them for us so that we can allow two people to drive a sled but it will fit six. This way you get two sleds per squad and no splitting up.”

Random bursts of cheers, laughter, confusion and other such emotions filled the room. Rizzit continued on as if ignoring them.

“Jester Squad…your job is to infiltrate the base. Once you are inside you will grant the rest of the squads entry to the base. I am hoping that there are a lot of people and they will not notice the ones missing because….you will be using their old uniforms. There are nine of them as there are nine of you. Hopefully you can go undercover for a long while without being noticed as your other assignment is to see if you can find out anything interesting either about the virus or about the information they obtained from it. So congratulations to Jester…you will be the envy of the corps…as the only squad that will not be in plastic tin cans we call snowtrooper armor.”

“RAIDERS Squad…your job is easy. Find who is in charge and capture them if you can. Take all the precautions you need to find this out...but bring them back to me preferably alive.”

“Wraith and Blackjack…your jobs are to engage the base crew and take out as many as you can. I prefer you do it as discreetly as you possibly can but we cannot be fussy. The main goal is stay alive…and capture the ones in charge if possible.”

“Paladin squad…you have the most important job of all. See to it that no one escapes. The more important people will most likely attempt to flee the scene but you must keep any mercenaries from leaving…even if it means taking their life. Their lives are not of any more importance than yours…in fact they are less important. I also want you to be sure that you destroy all the weapons so they are left defenseless. I want as much of their equipment destroyed as possible. Explosives, Blasters, Hell; kick it if you have to: I want their equipment destroyed by whatever means necessary. If you should stumble across that blasted virus though try and replicate it through their systems first”

“Good luck to all of you.” Said Cosmic. “You will need it. We are almost at the drop point so I suggest you get ready. Jester if you come with me…I will get you your ‘uniforms’”.

With all the excitement going on onboard the Dominion; the invasion, something about a virus and whatnot, it seemed likely that everyone would be buzzing with the anticipation of soon-to-come action.

Well almost everyone.  One must include 'those that drink' beforehand in the picture, and with drunkards there are two kinds.  The first are the tolerable kind- the stupid, the clumsy; the second aren't so tolerable- the depressed, the violent.

Ron was of the second kind.  It was no choice of his, but after the murder of his uncle on Corellia he took to drinking, and once he was deployed in the troops as a life sentence he took to drinking, and whenever he felt down and out of it he took to drinking; and so drinking became a habit of his which he only took to when faced with these troubles.

Ron was afraid to die.  Not a cowardly, whimpering fear- nor an immature or wild fear.  It was the kind of fear that grows in every man who knows that death is near, a tingling sensation that rips us apart from within.  It was a nagging fear- a stomach aching fear- and what felt to Ron at the moment as a stupid fear that he shouldn't be having right now.

Ron's eyelids lifted up off of bloodshot eyes for a moment.  He was laying flat on his back in his cot in the barracks.  At his feet were three bottles of the strongest Corellian beer he could get his hands on and in his right hand was the smoldering remains of his seventh death-stick.  Ron turned his head slowly, his head seemed to burst- so great was his headache. He closed his eyes again while taking in a deep breath of air.  He hadn't gone to the party because he knew he would have gotten into trouble, and he would have gotten drunk.  Some good that did.

“Eight hours.” whispered drunken Ron to himself.  “Eight hours until we‘re in another damn war…”

Ron stopped short in mid-speech.  He had been slowly rising up in his bunk with every word, but as he neared sitting up his headache returned with full vigor and made him lie down again.  He closed his eyes with pain, and threw a boot at the light switch on the wall to turn out the dull overhead light.  He missed.

“One thing is for sure.” grumbled Ron.  “I’m not lettin up without no trouble.”

He burped.

“I’m goin to give them imperial commanders hell before I let them drag me off to… to…”

His eyes closed.  The alcohol finally had done its worst, and now all that was left in Ron was a miserable and tired echo of the raving drunk he had been.

“To sleep…” he mumbled.  It was the last time he slept so sound- for a long time.

The bridge of the Dominion was a flurry of activity as commtechs relayed messages from one end of the ship to another, minor naval officers tired to look important by studying datapads or barking orders, blurs of white uniforms of the intel officers weaved through the labyrinth of sensor stations, power readouts, astrogation charts and other machinery that contributed to the orchestra of beeps and chimes.

Riqimo was peering over the shoulder of the commtech whom was performing the dockmaster duties such as prelaunch checks for the current operation.

"Dropship Yusilian, is Raiders Squad onboard?"

"Yes dockmaster, they are currently performing armor checks, otherwise ready."

"Standy by for launch, you will launch in pair formation with Dropship Poske as soon as they finish fueling."

"Copy that, dockmaster."

Riq rolled his neck to relieve some of the stiffness from being over the man's shoulder the entire time, and for the first time in about five minutes was no longer on his tiptoes.  I really need to see about platform boots if I'm going to be peering over someone's shoulder for the entire week, even if they are sitting...

Just as the Lieutenant was about to do some light stretching to relieve tension, alarm klaxons stared blaring though the ship and the bridge was filled with red flashing lights.  Riq quickly muttered to the dockmaster to hold the launch as he shifted through the crowds towards the tactical holotable where Rizzit, Cosmic, Dere and Captain Elith (whom commands the Dominion) were all gathered around.

"Riq nice of you to join us," Rizzit nodded to the table that was displaying the planet and it's singular moon.  Small red daggers seemed to be flying straight for a green arrowhead which Riq assumed was the Dominion.

"They're engaging us?" He blinked.

"Aye, they actually hold the advantage in this case, we spot at least four squadrons of x-wings and six of TIEs.  We only have our weaponry and three squardrons of droid TIEs," Commander  Elith gestured her hand towards the small green daggers that had just come out of the green arrowhead.

"Those TIE's don't look quite right..." Cosmic was glancing at a display monitor rather than the tactical holodisplay.  "They look more like escape pods with TIE fins on them."

"Budget cuts?" Rizzit shrugged.

Cosmic turned towards one of the techs at a nearby station, "Just to be sure, get a lifesign reading on one of those escapepod TIEs."

"Paranoid much, Prefect?" Dere sniffled as he pulled out a well used handkerchief.

"Sirs and madam," the tech turned around in his swivel chair, "There are at least thirty lifeforms on board, I can't get an exact number, due to all of them being in close proximity to each other, they're obviouly cramped."

"Boarding attempt," Elith, Riq, Rizzit, and Cosmic muttered in near unison, causing Dere to raise an eyebrow between blowing his nose.

As if on cue beeping noises alerting the crew that escape pods being jetisonned.

"God dammit," Elith gritted her teeth, "I think they got an agent onboard who just gave them a way in," she turned to shout at a nearby officer, "Find out what escape pods were just launch and get a security team down to each of them now!"

"Time for a change of plans troops are going to be seeing combat sooner than expected," Cosmic quickly began planning out tactics.

"Raiders, Wraith, and Blackjack are already geared up in snowtrooper armor and in their dropships awaiting orders, I can get them to any escape pods ejected near the hangar."

"Keep them there," Rizzit pointed to a single squadron of the boarding craft banking hard and heading directly for the hangar.  "That's twelve times thirty for 360 enemies just heading straight for them.  I'll get some attachment of the 53rd down to assist them quickly as possible."

With that, Rizzit was quickly heading towards the turbolift to leave the bridge and relaying orders over his comlink as he went.  Cosmic on the other hand was pointing out points to set up blockades on the Dominion's deckplans that he had just pulled up while Elith gave the orders to position her security forces at those chokepoints.

"I'll get Jester, Paladin, and the rest of the squads and platoons geared and in position," Riq shouted to Cosmic over the chaos of orders going everywhere in the bridge as he was soon following in Rizzit's footsteps out of the bridge.

"Phalanx Platoon, I need you position corridor H284 near the rear of the ship, nearly 15 escape pods jetisonned there. Crusader Platoon, defend the bridge, we got several escape pods out over here, get your orders from Cosmic," Riq was now in the turbolift headed directly to the bunking areas of the other squads.

"Paladin, Corridor R398, it's near one of the mess halls, meet up with some of the security forces there.  Jester, I need you at K672, that's right outside the bar.  Dark Dragoons, Eclipse, and Iron Horse, hold up for me, I'm coming with you.  Let's get moving, get these pests off our damn ship!"

OOC:

Sorry about deleted/editted posts that I had to do.  Everything should be set now.  We actually have some objectives now, defending the Dominion from boarding actions coming through the jetisoned escape pods as well as the hangar.

Let's get to it folks!

He hated this helmet, the vile contempt he had for the helmet had him wanting to scream. He wanted his helmet, his helmet could interface with any of his weapons instantly, giving him readouts on everything from cooling, component breakdown, ammo capacity, range to target, everything. This one had, nothing. Ripping off his helmet he glared at the insides, noticing just enough room for one small addition.

Reaching into a belt pouch he pulled out a small headset viewfinder, slipping it on he nodded slowly as it brought up the specs for his highly modified DC-15. Mumbling to himself he put the helmet back on and engaged the locks.

Using simple eye movement he began a check of the rifles systems, noticing a slight irregularity he slapped the shortened barrel and rotated it a half degree clockwise.

"You never really explained why you carry that thing." One of his squad mates, he thought anyways, came over and said. "It's outdated weaponry, it's big, bulky, and frankly ugly."

"Only before you spend half a million credits on it. With the upgrades it's lighter, stronger, has better cooling systems, and with the addition of a interchangable combat system, it has the capacity for short to medium range combat, and a very nice sniper rifle hookup."

Shifting his shoulders slightly, he picked at a piece of lint on the pad of his weapons harness. Usually a MG-1 electrostaff, and various other tools sat in the harness. Now, only the elongated sniper barrel sat in it's holster, a new addition was added to the mix a M13 semi-automatic shotgun sat just above his left shoulder. Twin bandoleers sat crisscrossing his chest plate, two Self-Defense Engine Frontier Model B pistols sat in holsters along his legs.

Running his fingers over the data plate on his DC-15 he mumbled to himself again, he really hated this helmet.

Alarm Klaxons began sounding throughout the ship.

Someone began nodding and holding their left hand to their ear. A couple moments later the same person turned around and shouted "All right, looks like we get to have some fun quicker then we thought. It appears that the enemy want to die now rather then later. A couple escape pods have been jettisoned, and they are going to use some they flew up to dock with us. Which means two things, one we have saboteurs on board, and two that the buggers that are boarding are going to die. Our orders are to secure the hangar, so pick a spot and defend it."

He thought it was Kand who said that, but with the muffled comlinks and the impersonal robot voice it gave everyone, it could of been Helena.

Keying the weapon to single shot, he found a nice place and brought the weapon to bare on one of the doors leading into the hangar. He still hated the helmet.

Alarm klaxons resounded around the ship and Alan glanced up at the red flashing lights and thought to himself what the hell is going on.

Riqimo’s voice suddenly came over the com as he said "Paladin, Corridor R398, it's near one of the mess halls, meet up with some of the security forces there”.

“What do you think is going on?” asked Nick.

“I don’t know” replied Alan.

“Whatever it is, it sounds serious” stated Lucky, “let’s get moving”.

“But I just got my snowtrooper armour on” replied Alan.

“Let’s go” said Lucky.

Alan glanced down at the clumsy armour and hastily unbuckled it from his body.  At least I don’t have to wear that he thought as he grabbed his black shock trooper armour and started putting it on as the squad raced down towards the specified corridor.

Lucky took the lead as she seemed to know her way around the ship and Alan was still wondering what it was that was going on but it sounded pretty serious.  They soon arrived at the location in question and were greeted by two security officers.

“What’s the situation?” asked Lucky.

“We’ve been boarded” replied one of the officers.

“Damn” muttered Requiem.

Nova roared, angry that anyone would even have the guts to board the Dominion.

“So what location are they coming from?” asked Nick.

One of the security officers pointed down a corridor and said “we’ve been told that the intruders should be advancing on our position from down here”.

The security officer then peered down the hall to see if there was any movement.  A bolt flew out and struck the officer.  He flew backwards.

“Frank!” yelled the other officer as he moved to assist.

“No!” yelled Lucky.

Her scream was too late as several bolts struck the security officer and he collapsed.  Alan glanced down at the first officer and saw that the bolt had sliced cleanly through the man’s forehead.

“Damn they’re good” he commented.

Gates was lounging with his feet on his backpack and half-strapped into the dropship when the klaxons went off.

"Shit!" he muttered, moving his feet off of the heavy plastoid pack. "BlackJacks, sitrep!"

"Boss, command's got hostiles incoming."

"Where do they want us?"

"Right here! We've got an estimated-" the comm crackled as the Dominion's turbolasers started to fire, messing momentarily with the comm -"they're using some sort of escape pod-TIE!"

"Repeat that, what?"

"360 enemies! They want us, Raiders and Wraith here to repel boarders!"

"Move it, then, find Tanus and tell him, too. I can't contact him. BlackJack! On me!"

The other BlackJacks ran up to the ASL, who quickly explained the situation, then waved at a few Navy Marines who had entered the hanger.

A trio of TIE-Pods flew into the hanger, and the Imperial personnel scattered. Gates, on the run, attached his bipod and a x6 scope.

The three vehicles crashed to the deck, and their ramps opened.

Men in strange armor poured out, and the firefight began in earnest. Gates was standing behind a rack of missiles, which, while it might sound like a bad idea, were hardened to prevent from exploding in a situation like this. He popped up, and fired a couple sustained bursts into the nearest drop pod. A trio of the men collapsed, smoking holes punched through their armor by the plasma rounds.

The other BlackJacks and marines opened up, downing a dozen, but the forces kept coming.

A man that managed to avoid the fire, the first, dipped his hand to his belt, and pulled a grenade from his belt, and side-armed it at Gates and a pair of marines firing a support weapon.

Gates stood straight up and caught the grenade with his good hand, then nearly dropped it when his snowtrooper gloves nearly squirted it out. He chucked it back, but it detonated before it reached its intended target.

"Tricky bastard," Gates muttered, then fired a trio of plasma blasts right into the visor of the man, destroying a good portion of his head.

Still they came on, despite withering fire from the Imperials, and there were more TIE-Pods on the way...

"Don't underestimate these guys Wraiths, they aren't normal rookies, they're pros."


"Wonderful." grumbled Ron. 

He waited for a rebel to come close enough before sending a throwing knife strait at his neck.  Long hours of practice paid off- and Ron took down his first kill of the night.  For a throw in the dark- it was near perfect.  He crawled up to the fallen soldier to take any weapons that he might make use out of (he prefered pistols comparted to unnaccurate blaster rifles) but couldn't help looking at the face of the dead one.

"Eight hours ago I was afraid to die. Now here I am dealing out death to others." Ron wiped away streaks of blood from the man's face- pulling out his throwing knife as well.  The action resulted in a fresh spurt of blood that gushed all over the dead man and Ron.  Ron stood up, unwilling to be covered any more with the dead man's blood, but still unable to look away.

"Was this man afraid to die?  Was he ready to die?"  Ron's questions were left unanswered- another group of them had come aboard the ship.

"One bastard down."

Ron took out the heavy DL-44 Blaster pistol that he kept on his belt.  It was his favorite weapon- although he was apt to use all his ammo up midway through battle.  Ron dropped two with the pistol before a heavy stream of fire forced him to relocate his position.  From behind several hangar crates Ron could just see Kanderin taking on the enemy with foot and fist.

"Two.  Five for Kand? There's still alot more to be killed..."

Another close blast to his left.  They were coming harder and faster, Kand was right when he said that these were no amateurs- most of the bodies Ron passed displayed grizzled battle-hardened soldiers.  Ron hurried down a nearby corridor strewn with corpses of the dead.  Blood was sprayed over everything- making the floor slippery to walk upon and the walls sticky and dark.  The smell of the carnage was overwhelming.

A sudden siren rang out throughout the ship.  Another pod had landed, they had been boarded again.  Ron rushed down the hallway until he had circled back to the hangar...

"Steady." he heard someone say.  Could of been RK, but Ron knew its authoritative tone as Kanderin's voice.

"No one get's past us!" Kanderin shouted. 

Then they rushed in.  Troopers rushed into the fray, some of them disregarding their weapons all together, using their own hands to kill them.  Ron stood near a bloody wall of corpses- his E-11 in one hand and his DL-44 in the other.  A steady stream of fire came from the E-11, with a more accurate close range punch coming from the heavy pistol.

"9...10...11...12...!"  Ron whispered the numbers of his kills to himself, keeping a mental count for later.  One shot got him in the leg, dropping him to the floor.

As Ron fell, the marksman who shot him gained some ground to try to finish the kill.  Ron grabbed a nearby crate in pain and forced himself to stand by leaning on the crate.  As the enemy trooper lifted his rifle and took aim, Ron desperately fired a full round into the other man's gut.

"Die dammit!  I'll see you in hell!" yelled Ron.

The man fell to the floor with enough rounds in his stomach to kill ten men.

"13." Ron whispered.

RB groaned as he equipped his gear; born on a city planet and raised on a desert one his internal temperature never agreed with cold temperatures which was another excuse to curl up next to a soft warm body most nights. Another reason he wasn’t too excited about this mission was because of the lack of heavy armament or should he be more specific explosive armaments. Grabbing the M4 and the silencer, pocketing the latter most people just equip the silencer but if there’s no need to be quiet why sacrifice stopping power?

The call came through enemy troopers boarding the Dominion did Rogue really care? Of course not but his commanders did and that’s why it was now his problem, the way RB looked at it the chain of command was just an excuse to pass the buck down the line and to find someone to solve the problem or die trying literally.

Moving through the narrow corridors of the Dominion Rogue took notice of the lack of obstacles and the fact that only three fully armed and equipped men could fit abreast in the corridor. Suddenly wishing that he had thought to bring a blaster shotgun, RB just followed the trooper in front of him at a jogging pace.

Rounding a corner a sudden explosion launched the trooper in front of Rogue back into him causing the duo to in turn knock over the two soldiers behind them and they all together landed on a heap on the floor. “Group hug!” Rogue shouted at the top of his lungs, the soldier who had landed on top of Rogue got up in a sitting position and dropped the grenade thrower with a couple of rounds to the face and neck.

Rogue’s accuracy was a tad off as he was in a knee position shooting his slug thrower carbine not six inches from the other soldier who Rogue later found out was Dante. Firing at the man’s face, the recoil on Rogue’s rifle sent his shots aiming slightly further up destroying a viewport which sucked out one of the other assailants before the blastport closed down on it.

This section was quickly cleared out and one of the squad leaders was yelling that there was more in the left corridor and together the three squads began running down the corridor. Rogue paused for a minute thinking that it was silly to be chasing down an unknown amount of troopers in tight corridors while bunched together in great numbers. Rogue just waited until his fellow troopers were down the hall before moving in to the shadows and not making a sound. Hell for all he knew another squad would be coming down the right corridor, so he waited, and waited until finally he muttered. “Fuck it.” Running down the left corridor RB quickly noticed that the corridor split into two other corridors, switching to a squad frequency on his comlink. “Where are you guys?” Rogue asked.

There was no response which was a give away that the enemy had brought a portable jammer with them to disrupt the ship’s broadcasts. Deciding to head for the right corridor Rogue broke into a run figuring that he would either run into his squad or a quick death.

Verk was sitting on the edge of his seat, fingers crossed with his elbows on his knees when the alarms began to blare through the whole of the hanger and the Dominion. Verk sat up straight and looked to Garryll waiting for orders. Verk had changed a lot since joining the army. Never would he have been so quick to look for orders, always thinking of himself first, now he though of his squad mates.

“… 360 enemies… repel borders… Blackjack! On Me!”

Those few words were all Verk needed to hear. In seconds he was on his feet, turning around and grabbing his StA-52 Light Assault rifle from its rack. Checking that he had his ryyk blades as well, Verk released the safety on his rifle and ran after Garryll.

Verk nodded and ran for cover, ducking behind a few large durasteel crates. Verk clicked the rifle into semi automatic checking his ammo one final time. Rolling out from behind cover Verk raised the weapon, aimed and pulled the trigger. Rounds buzzed through the hanger picking off targets left and right.

The hanger of the Dominion was alive with blaster fire. Red and green blots flew in every direction, scorching the walls and floor. Bodies of mercs and Imperials alike littered the hanger floor.

Dropping to one knee Verk honed in on a group of four black armor clad commandos, pulling the trigger a few times and sending four rounds hurtling through one of the golden visors and out the back of the helmet. Keeping up with the barrage he downed a second, and a third, but the fourth ducked behind cover.

Ducking behind his own cover, Verk heard the customary Tink tink tink… of a grenade bouncing off of a metal surface. Verk dodged to the side but was too late. The explosive went off and sent Verk hurtling into a wall.

“Lead the way” said Lucky as she pointed to the security officer.

One of them opened the door, and was then shot down immediately.

“Looks like we didn’t take them all out with that blast” said Nick as he moved towards the side of the door.

Without thinking about it Alan dived into the room, firing both his blasters repeatedly.  It had been a long time since he had faced up against experienced opposition like this and he knew that it would take all the tricks in the book to bring them down.

The mercenaries found cover as Alan’s blasters bolts flew around the room.  Alan hated firing without actually hitting anyone but it gave the squad time to enter the room without fear of being gunned down as the security officer had been as soon as he had opened the door.

“Fan out” whispered Lucky.

The squad dispersed throughout the room and Alan started to take in his surroundings.  They were in a mess hall.  He was sure he had never been in this particular mess hall before but then he couldn’t be certain.

Lying down on the floor, he looked around.  He hoped that he could see some of the mercenaries’ feet.  If he could then he could shoot them and it would force them out of hiding and make the killing shot easy.

Alan’s eyes opened wide as he suddenly spotted a mercenary doing exactly the same thing.  Both of them realised what the other was doing and brought their weapons to bear on each other.  Alan was a split second quicker and his bolt flew directly between the eyes of the mercenary.

Damn they are good thought Alan as he continued looking for other mercenaries that may be in the room.  He started to wonder how the rest of his squad mates were doing and hoped they were having as much success as he was having.

Alan hated when the squad split up.  He watched Nick, Requiem and Nova head off down the corridor and hoped they would be alright against these experienced mercenaries.  Alan, Lucky and Drakar started heading down the other corridor.

A large explosion went off which shook the corridor they were standing in.  What the hell was that he thought to himself and then he wondered if the rest of the squad was alright.

“Report in, guys. Just heard a large bang” said Alan, hoping to hear Nick or one of the other squad members reporting in.

“Yeah, small bomb just went off, nothing too dangerous. It hardly did any damage at all” replied Nick.

“Stay sharp” said Alan.

“Roger that” replied Nick.

What the hell is going on down there pondered Alan.

“Lucky, you got a schematic of the Dominion?” asked Alan.

“Sure, one of the security officers gave me a copy” replied Lucky as she unfolded it and laid it out across the floor.

Alan glanced over the schematic and started to wonder what the mercenaries’ game plan was.  They looked and acted like professionals yet here they were sneaking around mess halls and corridors of no significance and using bombs that on the surface seemed to cause no damage.

“What’s they game plan?” asked Lucky.

“Hell if I know” replied Alan.

“Wait just one minute” said Drakar.

Both Alan and Lucky glanced over at Drakar and at the same time said “what”.

Drakar glanced intently at the map, scrutinising it closely.

“What do you see?” asked Alan, intently irritated that Drakar wasn’t being more forthcoming.

“Those sons of bitches” said Drakar as his eyes went wide.

“So help me Drakar, you tell me what you see now” said Lucky.

“Oh, sorry” replied Drakar, “I’m no expert but from the way I see it, there are communications junctions throughout the ship.  Take down enough of these and it could overload the entire communications array”.

“If that happens then when we go down to the planet we would be cut off from the Dominion” said Lucky.

“Exactly” replied Drakar, “and what better way to do it than in the non-essential areas of the ship such as the mess hall”.

“Then we have to stop them and stop them now” said Alan.

Rogueboy was walking quietly he could hear screams of pain and shouts of anger near the end of the hallway, sure he could rush down and get blasted by either side before he could so much as say a word or figure out who is blasting him. The bulky armour that he wore was far from comfortable and it made him sweat worse than a farmer on a hot market day and he knew that feeling as well. Thinking back to the house that he had owned on Dantooine almost fondly when he married that bitch Shannon and his in-laws had thought they could run his life, the whole miserable existence ended when his wife had a baby of different skin colour. RB had been happy to find out that his wife was having an affair even though she claimed and he knew otherwise, the timing was wrong and the baby did not come out three months early but the fact that she had lied to him that she was pregnant when they first got married stung his pride.

Having left that life and returned to the one that interested him more; soldiering and killing, every time he had a close kill he just pictured his victim as Shannon his mind warping things to fit an unlived fantasy her blood running down his arms as the knife opens the jugular artery spurting out precious life essence, his victim trying to staunch the never ending flow with his hands and they always fail to do it. The look in their eyes when they know their fucked the fear and panic the thought that they weren’t going to die like this no way, some of them just give in and those upset RB; at least make an attempt, give me satisfaction for what I have done to you.

Thinking about what he could or could not have done wouldn’t solve the pickle that RB was in; he was wearing light armour in a dark ship, he stood out like the prodigal son of the Maker. Reaching into one of the many pouches which lined his utility belt Rogue pulled out the silencer he so detested and screwed it onto his M4 carbine.

The sound of voices got louder and RB dropped to one knee and started inching his way closer, and closer. Rounding the final corner a body fell across the Raider trooper holding at its face trying to make the pain stop while blood was spurting out of a wound giving Rogue a coat of sanguine paint. What surprised Rogue the most was that it was a female trooper, more importantly a female VE trooper, and most importantly her likeness to Shannon; long dark hair, high cheekbones, slender pointed nose. RB was unable to see her eyes but he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, he would savour this image in all its glory to add more realism to his fantasy. Something he would never admit to any of the army’s therapists that they require the soldiers to see, in this instant he was aroused.

Now in danger as well as uncomfortable as the standard stormtrooper gear did not allow much space to become excited, Rogue was pissed. The battle was nearly over with the enemy mercenaries winning with a clear majority of about seven to the VE’s meagre two, RB not included however they didn’t count on a little something that RB liked to call. “The Rogue Factor.” Taking his time to aim Rogueboy squeezed his trigger gently which fires in three round bursts, aiming below the shoulder padding of one of the troopers.