Rogueboy was furious and his thoughts were running rampant about a certain Imperial Army officer. A loud crack interrupted his thoughts and he looked down and noticed that he had crushed his glass of water and that the clear liquid was working its way to the flimsiplast reports that were sitting on his desk. “Fucking hell!” He said aloud to no one in particular.

It had been a few days since his AT-ST had been destroyed, and he was still on this forsaken planet writing reports on the imperial army’s effectiveness. Currently they were not looking too effective; a ship had passed through the Vast Empire blockade a few days ago and since then the Siradorian army has had better weapons. One form of these better weapons was emplacements; the Siradorians had created a killing zone in between two steep ridges by placing numerous blaster turrets and proton torpedo turrets. Strategically it would be unsound to attack by air since the proton torpedo turrets would wreck havoc against bombers, and a frontal ground attack would have been suicide. The Imperial Army commander had sent in two waves in order to fully gauge the defensive capabilities. This had infuriated Rogueboy as the loss of life could have been avoided easily. Another reason that had annoyed Alex was that the IA commander had decided to stop the march to Sirador Prime’s capitol because of the ridge. The delay in the invasion would cost the Vast Empire millions of credits in risk pay, food supplies, and the use of a star destroyer for the blockade that had been pulled from pirate duty.

As soon as executive officer Rogueboy found out about the ridge he had sent a message to Rawen, his assistant. The message requested a detailed plan on how to get around the ridge problem, and secondly to send any additional supplies that would be required to complete the mission.  The responding transmission was simple; “We get a squad of STs in an escape pod, use a XT-100 jammer to make living matter undetectable, then we jettison the pod near the capitol, but more importantly not far from the main power station. Once there the squad sneaks in, and overloads the generators. Since the reports show that there is no other nearby power source to keeping the ridge defences active.”

Rogueboy had immediately fell in love with the plan and that was how Iron Horse got involved.

“Starfruit.” Rogueboy’s holo appeared just before the squad leader, who was sitting at her desk filing a report.

“What the hell!?” She jumped up all startled.

“Yeah...I got a program that overrides you accepting holos, get used to it.” Rogueboy said with a grin.

“What do you want?” She asked cutting to the point.

“I’ve already arranged everything; proceed to hangar eight-oh-six with your squad. My assistant Rawen will brief you.” Rogueboy commanded.

“Ugh...” Starfruit moaned before she terminated the holo-communication.

The squad was assembled at the hangar where a lambda shuttle was waiting. “I’m Rawen.” A brown skinned man said as he extended his hand to Jaenna. “You must be Starfruit?” He asked.

“Yes, what’s going on?” She said directly.

Rawen hid his surprise expertly. “I will brief you separately from your squad.” He said politely.

“Alright.” She said and stepped aboard the shuttle.

As soon as she stepped into the shuttle she noticed the kits that were safely stored under each seat. Rawen motioned for her to the front of the shuttle where he briefed her in almost the exact words that he had told Rogueboy, with a minor exception. “We will be arriving at Sirador Prime in approximately an hour, which should give you guys enough time to gear up. I managed to requisition standard stormtrooper armour, and A280s as well as 2 frags, smoke, and your usual assortment of melee weapons.” In the middle of his explanation the shuttle took off and after reaching a safe distance from the planet entered hyperspeed.

OOC:

Planet is Sirador Prime, backwater planet of the Corellian Trade Spine, won't find it in the wiki or wookie. Most of the planet is green meadows, picture stereotypical Ireland. Capitol is called Ginteem, objective is to get to the star destroyer blockading the planet, get in an escape pod, and jettison out towards the capitol. Once at the capitol you guys are going to disable the main power grid.

The Lambda-Class Shuttle reminded Rokh of his journey from the Vast Imperial Naval Platform Saratoga to the Army base located on Tadath. The ship provided little in the way of amenities, requiring it's inhabitants to find something to do while they were aboard. The newest member to Iron-Horse, Rokh of Clan Kham'bir, however, had plenty to do. He had brought a small collection of melee weapons. All of them needed a thorough cleaning.

Slowly, he removed his most prized possession from it's sheath. His PT-212 Vibroblade had been given to him after his successful completion of the 'right of passage'. A tradition carried out for his people for eons. on the holster connected to the vibroblade's sheath was his Treppus-2 vibroblade, the weapon most commonly used by the stealthy assassin.

He sat in a dark corner of the Lambda shuttle cleaning his knives and sizing up his squadmates. Truth be told, he wasn't all that impressed with their demeanor, aside from Luckystar and Starfruit. The Assistant Squad Leader and Squad Leader, respectively.

Time moved slowly on the shuttle, the hour that passed felt like eternity to the young Noghri.

"Preparing to exit hyperspace, ETA to landing is fifteen minutes! Suit up!" Came across the intercom. Rokh replaced both of the weapons and stood up, waiting to get his armor and blaster.

As the doors hissed open, Luckystar was all geared up and ready to go. The Iron Horse squad scrambled quickly down the ramp and looked around for the escape pod they were supposed to be using.

"I can't see it!" shouted someone, she couldn't tell who it was because she was focusing on finding the elusive pod as well.

"the pilot told us that it was near and that we couldn't miss it, what if it's not in this bay at all?" Demented suggested matter-of-factly.

"Good point" StarFruit mutterred before heading out the only possible exit. Shrugging their shoulders, eevryone followed her lead and soon all were searching for any more possible places where this pod could be. it had to be quite large since it had to carry them all comfortably to their destination.

"Found it!" Atoll shouted ahead of her, he was peering into what appeared to be another hangar bay.

Jogging over to where he was standing, the squad peered in intently and saw a fairly large escape pod, it was of a dull but shiny-looking grey, had no viewports and had been constructed into an odd shape that contained no edges.

"So now what?" Questioned Saphira amidst the heavy silence that reigned.

"Now we hop on and enjoy the ride, I'm assuming our coordinates are pre-programmed into its system so there will be no need to worry about that."

There didn't seem to be a door from which they could board the craft but after some investigating, a large opening was found on one of its sides.

"Ladies first" came Demented's voice as he stepped aside and let Lucky, Saphira and StarFruit board before any of the remaining memebers.

Once on board, Lucky strapped herself into one of the central jumpseats and looked about her as she waited for everyone to hop on and be seated. From a side panel, she found the switch that closed the door, after depressing it a soft hiss culd be heard as the hydraulics engaged and the door slid shut quietly, locking with a click.

StarFruit played with a few buttons and entered a few commands on her own console and soon enough Lucky could hear her SL call out "hold on tight boys and girls, here goes!"

The engines whirred loudly, she cold feel their vibrations underneath her as the system booted up, a hatch opened and before she could cach her breath they were whizzing out of the Bay and on their way to the stange planet Sirador Prime.

A few minutes after their exit from the destroyer, they were pushed hard into their seats by the G-Forces and she could hear someone call out "We're coming in hot!" Less than a minute later, they landed vioently and a few moans could be heard as the door hissed open and the engines whirred down.

"Welcome to terra firma" Lucky announced wearily as she gingerly worked the straps off and struggled to get her aching body out of her seat.

Any normal person's natural instinct in this position would have been to bring their arms to bear and open fire. The majority of the squad that was outside of the pod did the former of the two. But training retook its roots and organization reigned once more.

Rather then open fire, the man was given quick, blunt commands in several dialects, until he responded, to lay down and cover his head with his hands. Unceremoniously, Starfruit stepped over the man and slammed the back of his skull with the butt of her rifle, effectively knocking him out and causing some possible brain damage. "Last thing we need is a squealing little pig giving away our--"

She was interrupted by flares of blaster fire shooting from the distance. One barely whizzed by the woman's shoulder, causing her military instincts to kick in and her dive into the crater caused by their landing followed. Kraytirous pressed himself against the ground, pushing his head up through a particularly thick tuft of grass to get a glimpse of their attackers.

They were trying to form a perimeter around them. He slid back down and turned over onto his back. "Ma'am, we're being surrounded." He reported plainly. At the moment, the young man felt in no position to suggest to his squad leader what to do. Atoll was also pressed against the ground, next to him, but he was laying prone and moving into a better firing position.

A few of the other members fired blindly into the horizon, their assailants mostly staying low enough to avoid detection. A stray blaster bolt did, however, bring a cry of pain from the surrounding vegetation.

Kraytirous' eyes then caught movement. He raised his head, watching what looked like a black rock fly through the air at an arced angle. It landed with a sharp thunk behind the squad members that were pressed with their stomachs against the dirt. Perhaps it was Kraytirous' instincts from childhood ball games, or perhaps he'd finally gotten the hang of this military ordeal, but either way, his reaction was the quickest. Well, almost. The quickest reaction was Rokh diving out of the way of the grenade as soon as it landed.

Kraytirous quickly catapulted himself towards the grenade, scooping it up and throwing it back in the same general direction it had come. He'd noticed from its shape that it had not been spherical, like most grenades, but was rather egg shaped. If his combat engineer teachings were correct, said bomb was a flash bang, not a frag grenade. Within moments his answer came when the loud fwoomch of the flash bang going off exploded into being. If they hadn't been wearing Stormtrooper helmets, the ears of the squad would be ringing and their eyes would have been fantastically dazzled by after images. But luckily, the Imperial tech came out on top.

Starfruit took no time to see the opportunity, gallantly announcing the Stormtroopers to charge. Atoll was already moving, his movements quick and trained. Kraytirous noted this with some jealousy of his veterency. The man dove behind the cover of some rocks, providing covering fire of his own. A flash of white ran by the young man, a figure with an unsheathed dagger rushing into the bushes, clearly eager to get to gripes with the enemy in the elegance of close quarters combat.

Kraytirous himself was sweeping the site of their ambush with his blaster, watching for any movement that would suggest survivors of the initial onrush of assault. At the end of the fight, a few scorch marks on armor were noted, but otherwise a half dozen dead militia, four addle-brained and three quivering in fear. The squad gathered around their leader, awaiting further orders.

The last of the militia dead, Talohn walked carefully to the those few remaining. Out of the seven that were still alive, the majority were still recovering from the effects of their own flashbang. The rest were cowering with fear in various places, terror stamped across their faces. Talohn considered killing them. After all, they could only cause more trouble while they were still alive. But he did not join the Corps to kill. He had done enough killing in his time. No, he joined to serve. Not to end lives. So, almost identically to what his SL had done a few minutes before, he raised the butt of his rifle and slammed it into their foreheads, one by one. Each knew what was happening, but they lacked either the ability or the will to resist as darkness engulfed them.

As Talohn returned to the group, he could hear Starfruit calling out orders to the rest of his squad. Most of them were panting slightly. The fight hadn't been the most demanding, but that didn't mean that it had been easy. Kraytirous had been particularly courageous though. Scooping up a grenade was no mean feat. Talohn clapped him on the back when he entered the huddle, shooting him a quick grin.

"--and I think that we should try and stay quiet from here on." Starfruit was saying. "If we keep charging in and shooting, they're inevitably going to call in some reinforcements. Who are probably going to be a lot better." Everyone nodded in agreement. "Any other suggestions...? No? Alright then, let's go."

They moved on through the capital, surprisingly encountering little resistance, which were easily dispatched. Talohn surmised that most of the military were either preparing for an assault on the blockade or stationed at important defensive locations. The power plant undoubtedly one of them. This wasn't going to be easy. If their presence was alerted to the city, every man within a mile radius would be out to shoot them. And being hunted by the military wasn't exactly on Iron Horse's to do list.

A large patrol up ahead. Undisciplined. Undoubtedly just security guards. No military training. Easy to dispatch. Yet something nagged at him. Why were such a large group standing stationary? The answer came to him a few moments later as he looked at the building behind the patrol. The building they were looking for...

"The power plants's up ahead." Talohn whispered into the comm., awaiting orders.