Kanderin sighed as he slid the key for his room into the lock and turned the key, only to reveal the huge stack of paperwork on his desk. For a squad that hadn't done much in quite a long time, there was sure a lot of a signatures to write. He wandered over to the pile and filtered his way through the top two or three sheets, there was a request for leave he had yet to authorise, the squad report that he had to sign alongside Arnaut, and two or three new trooper applications. He picked up the latter and sighed, he'd seen far too many of them lately. He muttered the first two names on the front sheets, and grimaced again. he'd been ordered to trash those two applications, as they'd been another two that had snapped during training. He tossed them in the trash, which was already bulging with like applications. The problem nowadays was too many recruits that weren't fit for Wraith's harsh work.

Looking back to the pile, something caught his eye. There was a yellow sheet mixed in between the boring whites, so he pushed half the pile to the ground to be able to grab it. He'd clean it later.

With the amount of paperwork he had, Kand developed a very keen skim reading eye, meaning he could read a full A4 page picking up all the key data in about ten or twenty seconds. Platoon commander worried about lack of missions, wanted to test their metal, meet in simulation room at 05.00 hours on the 3rd. Tomorrow. 5am would be difficult to make considering he'd spent the last few weeks not rising until at least 11am, if at all. Least they were doing something.

Reaching for his comlink, he tapped a few buttons before speaking into it.

"All Wraiths, meet at the Simulation rooms at 04.55 tomorrow"

He sent it onto all the Wraith's comlink numbers and dropped it back into his pocket. It was still only 5pm, he had time to spare before he'd turn in for the night. He locked the room and left the base, heading for the local bar. He was hoping he'd find Snipes and crew there and be able to share a few drinks with them.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

"And that'd be when...Shut up shut up this is the good part....I told this wookie.... twenty seven foot tall remember...that he can shove his repeater where the sun don't shine!" Kand shouted, throwing his beer into the air. The weight of the glass however was enough to throw his inebriated self right off the bar he was standing on and into the arms of a man waiting for a drink.

"Hi there gorgeous! What's your name!" Kanderin winked.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

The dull metallic drone of his alarm clock shook around the room, barely stirring Kanderin's still carcus in the corner of the room. He tried to reach out to turn it off, only to find out he had cacooned himself in the sheets and was well and truly stuck. A few curses and violent kicks later, and he was free. He reached for his alarm clock, his finger running around all the buttons, trying to remember which one turned it off. It'd of been a lot easier if his vision wasn't so fuzzy. He grew bored with it however and instead unplugged it and through it out the window.

His head was pounding like a circus drum, and he couldn't remember a thing about what happened last night. There was a yellow stickie label next to where the alarm used to be with the words 'Thanks for a great night honey, call me' and a number below it, so he assumed he has scored. He'd ring it later, when he had time.

What was he rushing for? The alarm had woken up, but he couldn't remember why. He was darting around looking for clothes, but he couldn't think why. His body seemed to be running on autopilot, waiting for his brain to catch up. He was still trying to work out why when he left the room and was marching down the hallway.

The simulation rooms arrived, and he suddenly remembered. Checking his watch, he was still five minutes early, which was a relief. Riqimo, their new platoon commander, was idly leaning against the wall chatting with Jennabelle and Wraith's newest recruit Helena. Kanderin was glad they had accepted her into Wraith's ranks with relative ease, he liked her a lot. Was nice to have a friend he knew from before his army days.

"Morning Kand, what happened to you?" Riqimo smiled, waving a hand down the hallway.

"What do you mean happened to me?" Kanderin inquired, before remembering he was speaking to the platoon commander "Sir"

"You look a real mess, haven't ironed those trousers by the looks of it"

"Oh come on, like I iron clothes" Kanderin grinned.

Riqimo shrugged and turned away, carrying on his conversation with the other two, who also passed him quick greetings.

"So what we doing today?" Kanderin called, taking a position against the wall next to Riqimo.

"Well, the commander here wants to test how combat fit we still are, so he's arranging a combat simulation for us inside. The tech's are working on it now" Jenn responded.

"Sound's good to me. Who we be fighting?" Kanderin yawned, keeping one eye open to watch for the reply.

"Thats the interesting part" Riqimo nodded to himself "You'll be fighting each other. Splitting the squad down the middle, it'll be Team Arnaut, vs Team Kanderin. I'll explain more once everyone's here"

RK ran down the hall faster than a normal human should, he was short on breath, but he had to get to the simulation room before Arnaut or the new PC,Riqimo, noticed he was missing. I’m not terribly late, but I know Riq, he’s going to make the introduction as short as possible.

He continued to run, dodging officers and guards as he continued on his way. Twice he had to stop just keep from a disastrous collision. He had been threatened of demotion numerous times by officers, but he didn’t care, his main objective was to get to the sim room, then deal with whatever else.

It had been a while since Wraith had gotten any action. When RK had gotten the message about the simulation he could hardly contain his excitement. He almost broke his window jumping up and down. He felt like a child in a candy store when he had heard about it.

RK started to slow down as he rounded the corner. The Simulation room was straight in front of him. I hope I’m not late. He opened the door. A small hiss could be heard, which startled him slightly, but he regained his composure after a while.  He took two steps inside, instantly realizing all eyes were on him. “I’m not late am I?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. You just missed Riqimo’s introduction.” Jenn said.

Slowly a sheepish smile spread across RK’s face, he wouldn’t admit it, but he was actually sorry he had missed it. Specially since Riqimo was his old SL. “I suppose a ‘I’m Sorry’ is in order.”

“Actually, don’t worry about it, let’s all just get this started. RK you can figure it out as we go along.” Arnaut said, slipping away towards the simulators.

RK mentally slapped himself. He had never been late, but he was this time. Just let it go and get through the training simulator, regardless of whether you know what’s going on or not. He woke up to reality and followed behind Kand.

He didn’t want to let his team down, but he had already put away in his mind that he had. Being late wasn’t acceptable in his book, but it couldn’t be helped it was over and done with.Just don’t mess up in the mission, and you will be fine. The thought didn’t comfort him any.

“RK, your with my team, you’ll figure out who else is with us when you get into the Simulation.” Kand said, heading towards a Simulator in the back.

RK selected a machine not to far away from his team leader. He hoped it was one of those mission that you caught onto quickly, if it wasn’t he would be in deep trouble. He had never done a simulation before, although he had come close a while back when he was in Jester. So this whole thing was new to him. He hoped it wasn’t to hard, maybe it would feel like a real live thing.

I just hope it doesn’t hurt.

Helena wasn’t very sure of what was happening. That was her flaw, not listening very well, she knew she had to go on a simulation of some sort, but she didn’t know what it would involve. After all, she’d never done one before, she was still new to all this.

She looked towards Kand and smiled. Knowing he was in her team comforted her. Having someone there she knew previously, showing her the ropes of her new squad, was the best thing that could have happened to her. She liked Kanderin, he was easy to open up to, and that’s why she went looking for him in the first place.

“Do I seriously have to wear this?” She laughed, touching her sides and backside.

“It’s a bit… Tight fitting wouldn’t you say?”

Kand spun her round and checked out the shadow suit, making sure everything was in check. The black shadow silk made the suit hard to see, but that was its purpose. It was to absorb the light and sound, making it hard for the enemy to see or hear them. Helena found it strange compared to the old noisy suit she had become a custom to.

“I know it may seem a little tight, but you’ll get used to it. It’s actual quite flattering” He smirked whilst touching his own body in the suit.

They both laughed and looked towards RK, who seemed to be having trouble getting the suit on. He had the goggles on backwards and seemed to have the actual suit on back to front.

“I don’t know why you’re both laughing, this thing is complicated” RK stated as he stood there out of breath from trying to sort it out.

That made both Kanderin and Helena laugh even more. Once Kanderin had helped RK out on the suit problem, he explained the mission more clearly; making sure Helena knew what she was doing by the end of it.

Helena clutched a locket in her front pocket of her shadow suit. She never went anywhere without it. It was far too precious to leave behind anywhere. As she clutched it she looked back towards Kanderin and smiled lightly before letting it go, making sure it was securely in her pocket and not about to escape.

“You okay Helena? You seem out of it today” Kand questioned, placing his hand delicately on her shoulder from behind.

Helena tried so hard not to show fear; she turned to face Kand and smiled.

“I’m fine honestly, now when are we going to make our first move, time isn’t on our side at the moment.” She laughed lightly, secretly wiping a tear from her eye.

Kand nodded in agreement, trying to find the map he had been given to try and locate our location.

Helena laughed as Kanderin finally whipped out a pod from his backpack. It was metallic and seemed spherical with many buttons on the one side. After Kand had pressed a few of the brightly lit buttons in a sequence, the sphere popped open on its hinges. This revealed a holographic 3D map. Helena hadn’t seen one of these up close before. She was used to the old fashion instinct map. She looked at it bewildered.

Kanderin had pointed out the blue sparkly arrow which showed where we were located, the blue water and streams which seemed to be running through dense forests, and a huge red arrow which showed the location we needed to get to. They were on the far left of the map, situated in the dense forest, which had a river running right through the middle of it.

Helena coughed, she wasn’t that keen on water, and she hoped she wasn’t going to be sailing or swimming anytime soon.

She looked around at the other team members who seemed to be packing up their backpacks ready to set off. Each had set packs created for the simulation and each had the same.

The sun seemed to be just hitting the horizon; the pastel warm colours filling the entire sky seemed to be fading. She knew there wasn’t much time left, from first guess, she’d say around four hours. That was enough time to at least get their bearings and actually get to the location.

Helena made her way over to Kanderin, stroking his arm for her own comfort.

“We will get there on time won’t we?” She smiled lightly.

Kand seemed to have his eyes locked on her hand being there and looked uneasy, so she removed it, returning to an “embarrassed pose”. Her pale cheeks became rosy, due to her embarrassment.

“Uh, yeah! Course we will” he hesitated, still taken a back by her actions.

Helena nodded before informing the others on their movement. The team picked up their backpacks and headed off towards the south, following the river to the Mouth. Helena gulped with fear.

Helena’s smile instantly disappeared as soon as she heard they were planning on going up stream in a boat. Her fear of water was getting the better of her as she began to shake. Her palms began to sweat and her knees were knocking together, getting more and more frequent as the boat come closer.

“Uh, I-I don’t think I’ll fit, I’ll walk along side” She muttered, trying to get herself out of it.

“Nonsense! What are you afraid of, Water?” Kand smirked.

”If only you knew”

“Uh no, I-I just like to be in luxury” She half heartedly laughed.

The team more or less forced her on the boat. Her feet were planted on the ground but each member picked up a limb and more or less threw her aboard.

“Now, if you are going to vomit, please aim it off the side of the boat. I’d like to save time, and not be cleaning it up” Kand laughed before pushing the boat off shore.

RK was shocked that the simulator seemed so real, and the fact it didn’t hurt actually shocked him the most. However, it was still all too real; every touch, every sound, it was all crystal clear. I just hope it doesn’t hurt to get shot.

They continued down the stream at a steady pace, small splashes of water jumping up every once and a while; it was cool, startling RK even more about the realism of the Sim. It wasn’t any different then real life, but at the same time it was.

RK moved back to looking in front. He was starting to get excited the closer they got, in all honestly he just wanted to find a convoy and get behind the controls of whatever they had, hopefully it would be something he enjoyed driving.

“How much longer?” RK asked, hoping Kand had some idea of where they were.

“We will get there when we get there.” Kand said, still keeping himself glued on taking in the surroundings.

“Great….” RK heard Helena mumble from behind him. He was thinking the same thing.

"You know, chief, I just love it when you say that," Koll said in a hushed whisper. This was supposed to be a simulation, not a deathdance in hell. Koll had seen enough blood on their assignment in Corellia. And those creatures.... Koll shook his head to rid his thoughts of the beasts. "What now, sir?" Koll asked, finally remembering the honorific.

"We get out of here as quickly as possible, Private," Arnaut returned. The slight was minor, but those two words meant either the SL was losing his nerve slowly, or he didn't like Koll's tone. Not caring either way, Koll followed his leader in a low crouch.

Darkness slowly crept around the squad, their suits hiding them all but their goggles. Koll dropped his down around his face, the world immediately taking a reddish tint, but allowing him to see better. He wished he was back in his fiber optic stealth suit, but, again, this was a simulation. Riq had control over what they did and didn't have. Finally, the squad crested the hill in front of them. Below lay visible a valley with numerous troop outposts dotting the landscape. This was going to be a little tough. Not to mention the patrols in the way, the walls, and the main facility on a slightly raised slope behind said walls. "This sim just gets better and better, don't it boss?" Koll asked, staring down at the ground below.

"Those walls look pretty thick," came a voice from behind them, one of the squadmates.

"Sure do," Koll said, whislting lightly. "A nice explosion might crack'em open nice, though."

"We;ll search the next patrol we meet for supplies, especially anything we can make an IED out of," Arnaut said, still observing the lay of the land. "Make that two IEDs."

"Two, sir?" Koll inquired, raising the arc of his eye ever so slightly. Sure, no one could really see it, but Koll enjoyed the effect. Arnaut only looked at him, and if Koll didn't know any better, he coulld have swore he saw a twinkle in his eye.

IED, that word was like talking death to Jenny, she had almost gotten into a speeder rigged with a car bomb and her first boyfriend, Tenron Skytrin had done the damage well with the death of her jogging mate, Kona Ara, one of the reasons she left him for Bunt. If she only had Leia with her, Leia was quite the expert when it came to IEDs, her parents died with the set off of a car bomb that they never expected, giving Leia quite the birthday present. After what happened she used her knowledge of an computer wiz to learn more about IEDs, what they are, how they are made and disarmed, etc. She not only acquired the info from there, she also took engineer classes that talk about them sometimes, for they are the best weapons of terrorists. I've always had a fear of dying by a IED, now I'm giving that fear hopefully to those enemy down below, for that is what once commandos have done, and wraith will do now, create fear in men. Jenny thought understandingly and fatefully as she held the knives tight in her hands, Arnaut looked at her wandering thoughts with curiosity as she merely answered his looks with quiet whispering:

"I'm fine, Arnaut, you don't have to worry about me, just concentrate on making that bomb and blowing the wall up. I think you might create some fear and tension among the enemy, for that once worked with me one time."

"Alright, let's get going, keep close behind me and do what I do, don't try anything stupid and get us revealed, we're at the crucial point in this mission, we need to create 2 IED so that we can blow up that base wall, now get going!" Arnaut said quietly and orderly as the words hardly escaped him before he went carefully on a route down the hill, Jenny and the others following behind.

Jenny only heard occasional conversations as she passed the patrols who'd stopped for a smoke or drink, mostly about what happened with the old guard and the young man, identified now as Savcen Leeell and Anaan Qualqus, laughs about the female girlfriend, Melke, saving Anaan from harm, hating how she was mocked when she did what she would do for anyone during a critical moment, Jenny would have done the same had it been in her shoes. She tried not to let it distract her or make her pissed and kept moving with Arnaut through the woodwork of the patrol routes until soon, down the hill, and around a couple of guard outposts, they came upon a patrol with two well-armored troopers carrying supplies with great care, with DC-17 rifles shouldered and ready to fire, blaster pistol and two vibroblades strapped on their belts, to the camp marked munitions.

"Well, we found our guys. I think we should go check out their munitions, see if they have any explosives and/or detonators, for I think it'll make quite the fireworks and as Jenny said, probably give those men quite the scare. Alright, follow me, we'll deal with them at the camp, we can't risk alerting the guards on the outposts here, so we'll go where they're going." Arnaut relayed silently so that only the squad could hear, based on his inferences from the looks of the supplies they were carrying. He added to Orrix, the newest member as he stressed quickly: "No riffraffs, we don't want to mess up on the most critical part of the mission, concentration, smartness, determination, luck is our best bet for a win on this, so let's get going."

They avoided some patrol and stationary weapon on the way by following the side of a supply truck heading the same direction, giving them more chance to getting to the munitions depot, which they'd hoped there would be explosives and/or detonators to help them make the two IED they wanted. Jenny knew that this was a crucial moment and things would get quite close, so she gripped the knives tight in her palm, ready to slash out at any moment.

OOC:

I'll leave the rest to Arnaut, I know he can find a good engineer out of our team to do this, and it's better if he did this next part, I think, if you guys all get my meaning. I just don't want to move the story too much, 'cause I'd hate to cause a riff.

Charges. Check. Detonator. Check. Remote receiver. Check. Demolition-man.

Demolition-man.

“Whose gonna blow these walls?” Arnaut hissed into the comlink. Koll jumped, his thoughts interrupted.

“Me, sir, sorry, sir.” He scrambled forward and took the detonator from Arnaut’s outstretched hand.

“On five,” Arnaut commanded, staring at Koll directly in the eyes. Koll nodded. “Five. Four. Three.”

A beam of light, white and intense, washed across the group and the last numbers died in Arnaut’s throat. They hadn’t even seen the speeder sneak up, busy as they were mining the wall. It hovered not thirty feet from the squad, painted matte-black and green, the searchlight on its back sweeping through the dense foliage. Four men were in the vehicle, all in the same drab fatigues as the patrol squad that had stumbled upon Bravo Team earlier. A side gunner, bearing a familiar looking A-280, a rear gunner, manning a heavily modified E-Web grafted on the back of the speeder, a searchlight operator, and one, very, very bored driver. So far, they didn't seem to have noticed Arnaut's team.

“Alright,” Arnaut whispered, very slowly. “Pull off your goggles and back away very slowly. As long as they don’t have IR scanners, we should be safe.” And if they did, Bravo team was screwed, but you took what you could get. The squad nodded in compliance, and began to back away into the shadows. They’d only put another ten feet between them and the vehicle when, suddenly, the driver snapped to and tapped at a unseen panel on his speeder. The other three men leaned in to look, and Arnaut got that sinking feeling he always got before a firefight. Slowly, deliberately, he pulled up his gun and trained it on the turret-gunner’s head. Speeder's had been known to sport thermal cameras on their noses, wired to a screen in the vehicle itself. If that was what they were looking at...

As one, the members of the craft looked up, then back at the craft, and then up a second time. Arnaut didn’t give them a third chance. His pistol coughed twice and the gunner fell out of the speeder. The others, screaming, jumped out and ran. They at least remembered to take their rifles with them in their blind panic, Arnaut noted.

“Out of all the possible things they could've done,” he muttered. “Don’t let them make it out of this forest alive!” He surged forward, stumbling at first through the dense undergrowth and the low hanging branches as he tried to slip his goggles on with one hand and hold his pistol with the other. They slipped on, rather reluctantly, after a few seconds of fighting. Instantly the world turned a lime-green color, and the stumbling came to an abrupt end. Arnaut looked around, but could find head nor tails of the speeder’s crew. He flipped on his thermal.

What was green at once became a collection motley blues and purples. Except for the two very distinct red/orange humanoid shapes running off to the left of Arnaut. He flipped the goggles back to their NV mode and gave chase.

He came upon the first one less than fifteen seconds later. The less-than-fit driver was hunched against a tree, panting. As Arnaut came up behind him, the man turned slowly, but offered no resistance. His gun lay discarded on the ground a few feet away. He looked up into Arnaut’s eyes, defeated. He knew he was a dead man.

Arnaut stared back for a second, and then flipped his pistol to ‘dart’ mode and tranq’d the man in the arm. He gritted his teeth for a second and then slid to the ground, breathing slightly slower. Arnaut wasn’t about to kill a defeated soldier, simulation or not. It felt wrong.

“Nighty night,” Arnaut said, and moved on.

The second man proved to be more elusive. And more of a pain in the ass. Arnaut rounded a tree, just a few feet from where he’d left the first man sleeping, and nearly got his head blown off. Blaster bolts shattered the wood, sending splinters whistling through the air.

Those had been aimed. Which meant that either Arnaut’s prey had thermal goggles now, too, or could see in the dark really, really well. Arnaut poked his head out again and, again, nearly took a faceful of blaster bolts. Most likely goggles. Yeah, definitely goggles.

Arnaut counted his options. The man had him pinned, pretty badly, and, without the rest of the team, there wasn’t much Arnaut could do about it. If he left cover, it was likely he get hit, if not torn apart. The man clearly had a better angle on Arnaut’s tree than Arnaut had on his.

To his left, there was a small copse of trees. They looked like much better cover, at least more so than the thin piece of wood Arnaut was hidden behind. If he could somehow get to there, he’d have a better view of the field he was playing on. Getting there was another matter.

Maybe, just maybe, if he popped out the right side, and blasted a couple of shots toward the guy, he could fake left and make for the trees. From there, he could get the man as he readjusted his cover to the other side of his tree.

It could work. The only fear Arnaut had was catching a stray blaster shot on his way to the left as the man tried to trace him. The suits weren’t good at taking hits, and even a glancing shot could render one of his limbs useless. A risk he had to take. He couldn’t wait any longer for the man to make it back to the base, or call in the encounter, if he hadn’t already. With his mind made up, Arnaut started counting. Five. Four. Three. He checked around, and made sure no speeders were checking up on him again. There weren’t any, thankfully. Three. Two. One. Go!

Arnaut leapt out from behind the tree, going right and...nothing. No shots, no anything. For a second Arnaut had a bad feeling that the man had bolted, but then he saw him. Lying...face-down. In the dirt. With blood collecting around him. And his head rotated at an odd angle.

The shadows directly above the man shifted and Arnaut made out two very distinctive shapes: the huge, lumbering form of Orrix, and the slimmer, shorter form of Jennabelle, dripping knife in hand.

+We got him+ roared Orrix in shyyriiwook.

“I...but...uh...good job. Both of you. Outstanding work. Um...back to the speeder, then, if that’s the last of them...?” Orrix and Jenn both nodded and Arnaut clapped his hands together. The sound dampeners on his palms muted the sound, but his meaning was clear. Orrix and Jennabelle hurried back the way they’d come, Arnaut trailing behind, still glancing back at the prone form of the corpse every now and then.

“So...who wants to ride shotgun?” Koll asked, as soon as they’d all gathered around the speeder.

“Ah, no,” Arnaut said finally, and placed his hand firmly on Koll’s chest to keep him from jumping in. “I’ve got a better idea for it.”

* * *

Guardsman Oppus patrolled the gates with the rigid manner that was instilled in all the guards the day they were programmed. His A-280 was slung comfortably over his right shoulder, easily within reach, and his glow-lamp was outstretched in the other. Even with the three spotlights, beaming down from the top of the gates, the ground was dark and Oppus’ programmer had designed him to be prone to tripping up on dark ground.

He passed Guardsman Sergley and shared a brief, scripted encounter where they exhanged bits of artificial base-gossip and patrol sightings. With a terse good-bye, the scripted even ended, and they went on their separate ways to complete, once again, their unchanging, unwavering guard route.

Suddenly, out of the darkness, Oppus saw headlights. This wasn’t scripted under his regular guard code. No matter. His electronic mind swiftly moved from its guard to curiosity procedures. He stepped toward the headlights and, with a flash of computer provided insight, called out, “Hey, is that Jatrel’s speeder?” Jatrel and his landspeeder team had failed to report over twelve minutes ago and were overdue by two. But if this was them, then all was good. He could go back to guard code and quite literally forget this event had happened.

Curiosity programming suddenly switched over to alarm, though, as Oppus noticed that the speeder was empty. His code did not include any dialogue for the situation, so he backed off in silent fear. The speeder came on, not slowing.

At the top of the wall, the gate operator was yelling into his comlink, probably trying to communicate with the people he still thought were in the speeder. Oppus saw that he was failing, and, in a flash of basic AI brilliance, took matters into his own hands.

He stepped out into the road, directly in the speeder's path, and held his hands above his hands.

“Hey! Speeder! Slow down! Slow down, speeder!” The words were a mish-mash from various other scripted dialogues, and were delivered awkwardly, but they got the message across. As much as they could, considering Oppus was yelling at a speeding vehicle. “Slow down! Slow—”

The speeder, going well over sixty miles per hour, smashed through Oppus. In his last, final seconds, his last, final code sequence kicked in. Taking the information from the speeder, including speed of the object, density of the object, the direction and force of the object, Oppus transitioned smoothly to his high-velocity impact coding. His ribs fractured, his spine severed, and every organ in his body exploded to mush.

The speeder continued on for another forty feet before crumpling into the gate. At the same time, over a hundred pounds of plastic explosives in the back, along with the speeder's fuel reserves, were remotely detonated. The resulting explosion blew the gate, the gatehouse, twenty-three guards, and a good chunk of the wall all to hell.

Jenny followed Arnaut carefully through the gaping hole in the base entrance wall, with wall pieces blown all around, some small flames licking at Bravo team as best they could, and bodies laid out all over the blown wall, blank eyes and shocked expressions. Jenny tusked at them for just a moment before heading inside. Sliding doors opened in front of them and troopers stepped out with DC-17 rifles and vibrobayonets at the ready in the empty, lighted but eerie hall as Arnaut led them to crates beside the windows on the second floor, which had two snipers peeking down the squad below with a sniper rifles, trained and ready to fire at any threat.

"Alright, guys, we're in the main hallway, by the looks of the map, the datacore is in the main data room, and access to it is on the second floor, behind that sniper, where there's a control room---" Arnaut started delivering his plan quietly as Jenny patted his back and interrupted him silently, gesturing to listen as she saw him peek from the crates with her, as officers came into the room, carrying blaster pistols, one of them saying:

"The commander has requested the control room be destroyed and totally unusable for entry into the data room, but we've both been entrusted for accessing the emergency controls into the main data room. Keep your guard up, people, they'll be coming into this hall any moment now."

"Oh, crap, Riqimo, nice surprise. Also people, we have no time to dilly-dally, as Alpha team is right behind us, so knock out the lights and prepare to dazzle the officers with quick slug pistol fire or knife stab, whatever, just get this done quietly on the mark of Koll' shots to the snipers."

---------------------------

Jenny snook up from out of her new cover facing the enemy squad and cut the throat of one of the patrolling guards as Koll took down the two snipers from above, the control room blowing in their wake. Enemy squad members were downed by every slug shot aimed at them, firing wildly as their bodies shake and die at the immense amount of slug bullets directed at them, leaving the officers firing left and right at what they thought was the enemy, only getting blaster pistols poked at their heads, goggles of Bravo Squad, including Jenny, staring at them with scorn and death in their bluey eyes.

Jenny saw that only a few of the squad members bled from the battle as they were quickly patched up by Arnaut, never keeping his eyes off the two officers as he merely said to the officers after patching up the men:

"Lead on, boys, lead on." Lead on us onto your death and datacore. Jenny said in her head the meaning of Arnaut's words.

Jenny watched in amusement as Koll was carried by Orrix, yelling complaints the whole way. She knew this would affect the mission as if the enemy heard them, they would probably sound the alarm, so she elbowed him to shut up, and chuckled at his attempts to retort Orrix's grip. Damn, if he keeps this up, Orrix won't even put him down. At the thought of that, Jenny laughed silently even further, while Koll complained, a little bit loudly as they approached the patrols nearby:

"Alright, missy, this has been quite the joke, but as you can see I'm wounded and need to be treated in a careful way, not carried like a rescued child." Arnaut quickly shut him up with a gesture as they approached a patch of darkness by some crates that some service men in sky blue cleaner uniforms were carrying into the base entrance, let in by some guards at the gates, seen by Bravo team. Arnaut quickly formulated a plan, still looking at the various patrols and service men's route around before explaining:

"Well, the situation is good for us, they don't know exactly where we are, but if they do, they'll probably snipe us with snipers at the best chance, so we'd better be careful not to alarm anyone. I gather that we should get into the base, following those service men, which we can probably blend into with their uniform's color, just make sure not to make a peek until you get inside. I'm guessing these gate guards will have sharp ears and eyes, so let's hope lady luck is on our side and get going."

Arnaut gestured them to follow him as he led them through the web of the patrols, careful to only kill when it is necessary, for too many patrols unaccounted for could spark a great amount of tension and fear among the men, especially the officers, to set off an alarm. As Arnaut passed the last lone patrol, finishing his ale and gesturing greetings to the service men, Arnaut gestured to camouflage themselves with the service men, wearing their goggles while the lone patrol turned and walked back along his route.

Jenny crowded close with service man passing her, but not too close as to not bump into him all of a sudden. The searchlight had passed over the gate and all was dim at the entrance as Jenny followed Arnaut's servicemen to the gates. A bit of gestures of greetings and some words said, and they were in.

-------------------

The AI was disturbed by no signs of the men that had invaded their base with so many of these guards set up around the perimeter. Lt. Crevance wondered if they had slipped into the base with the service men, passing right under his nose, as he called in the base first floor officer:

"Any distrubance on the first floor, Kutqus? I've been getting random reports of men unable to report on their situation."

"None as far as I can tell, Crevance, the service men are almost done carrying in all the cargo, you should come inside and guard, they've probably gone inside by now, if what you're indicating is true. It's only a matter of time before we will find them with the IR cameras set up, plus the goggles handed out among the men." Crevance sounded truthful as he always does, he was the best Lieutenant on the force after himself and had quite the reputation in handling these nasty situations.

"Yeah, I should do that, maybe then I'll be able to catch these men with more support." He keyed off as he checked the men once again before deciding to move out some of the men to inside the compound. These feisty imperial commandos won't get past my eyes when I have those goggles, they'll be at my mercy soon enough.

Jenny was surprised at the sudden explosion and suddenly realized after a moment of shock, who was behind the explosion, Alpha team. She had hoped they never run into Alpha squad, for explosion and red orbs flying all over the place would raise much suspicion from the passing personnel or guards. Well, they're here, so forget that and let's give Alpha team the welcome it deserves. She thought, shaking away the fears, as she followed Arnaut to cover in some office rooms that were empty, if only for the moment, with computer tables that weren't boxed in like she usually sees, but only spaced out by a windowed wall, and littered with notes of reminders and messages from their lovely commander, Doc, and from their loved ones back home. She hid behind the nearest desk as red orbs flashed by and Alpha squad came in, excited for the battle, ducking behind cover, firing at Bravo squad with ferocity.

Jenny holstered her knives and took out her slug pistol, checking its ammo to make sure she had enough. She returned fired along with the rest of the squad, tearing windows apart with glass falling on the floor, computer monitors ripped apart by the blast, churning out its insides like a normal human would, with small explosives that sent computer hard drives blowing up and emit a groaning sound it was accustomed to. She saw that Arnaut was thinking of a good plan to defeat Alpha squad and get their job done when the idea suddenly came to him in a sort of light-bulb way and he relayed to the rest of the team on the comlink:

"Jenny, Joamer, concentrate your fire on suppressing and not shooting off their arms, legs or shoulders that you are able to aim at. I'll throw a grenade at them and with the rest of the team we'll try and flank them, it shouldn't be that hard with the more fresh men on their side, though I don't think that'll be an advantage if Kand can work around it, but we'll try anyways."

Joamer and Jenny nodded as she reloaded a fresh clip for her pistol and suppressed the Alpha team with Orrix, letting Arnaut look at their positions and status and think about a good way to suppress. He let off a small explosive after a few moments and pretended to flank Alpha on the left side, firing his pistol at RK with Koll and Orrix, Orrix growling, moving slowly onto RK's side, as Kand noticed their movement, and did a counteroffensive.

"You aren't going to get me that easily, Arnaut, not today." Kand commented on Arnaut's cheap move as he moved with Helena and Arik onto Jenny's side on the right and fired on her, nearly giving her a body full of slug shots.

Jenny swear a bit as she avoided the shots, smashing the computer table behind her with her shoulder and jamming her way down to the aisle of offices behind her, landing on her back while firing shots at Alpha team filing in closer to her and Joamer's position.

"Joamer, get out of there, Kand's coming in." Jenny saw that he didn't need another warning as he also did a kind of slow motion move into the aisle behind him and retreated with Jenny herself behind him to the back of the room a holo projector screen flashing in the back of him, showing the base's layouts in blue and its entry points in green, the datacore room flashing on the second floor right beside the commander's room, almost having a target or X crossed right on it with its red glow.

"They've been readying this moment for quite a while, and still they didn't expect commandos in a stealth suit, huh, yeah right, Doc's not dumb enough for that." Arnaut and Kand said at the same time, staring at the screen before them with its circles placed throughout the building and cameras also set up throughout, with the newest update IR written beside the cameras and a crumbled note of reminder about picking up some IR goggles that Jenny noticed beside the garbage bin.

"Well, we'll find a way around that, I hope, for now, let's continue our battle, gentlemen." Arnaut said, turning the subject onto the said battle, which did continue, as to his delight, for Jenny reflected on his feelings about besting Kand in a match and knew this was a hard-to-miss opportunity for him to do so, and it was her honor to fire alongside him at this opportunity, to hit tooth with tooth and fire with fire until one of the teams came down, each other hoping it wasn't the end for them.