Zeshaun was feeling very lazy these days, a rumor was going around that a very important mission was going to announced soon, and the lack of the missions that Lucky and Alan had issued for the squad made Zeshaun believe the rumor was more truth than fiction. He spent many of his past days, lounging around in his room, going to simulation rooms to practice his flying and spending time in the firing range to practice his shooting. On a particular day he was lying on his couch flipping through the channels on his holonet when his comlink started to beep, Zeshaun turned the holonet off and got up to rummage through his pile of things on his desk to dig up his comlink.

“Hello?”

“Guess who?” A very familiar voice asked on the other end.

“Hey Gres, how’s it going?” Zeshaun asked, happy to hear his friend’s voice again.

They recently worked together to capture a man with a fairly large bounty on his head, Zeshaun was very happy to help out his old mercenary group, he had missed the free lifestyle of the mercenaries and the change of pace from the army was very relieving.

“I was wondering if you wanted to help us out again.” Gres asked, “We just got another bounty assignment, apparently some hacker named Moria Orlan is causing some problems within Tadath cyberspace.”

“I’d love to help.” Zeshaun said.

“Meet us at the usual hangar in ten minutes.” Gres said and Zeshaun could imagine the smile on Gres’ face.
This was just what he needed, he grabbed his LAR and got out his Akodo armor from his closet and walked out the door, excited to get some real action, his body was starting to experience withdrawal from the lack of excitement in his life. He ran through the street, clipping the last bit of his armor on as he ran and put his helmet on. He slung his rifle over his shoulder as he walked through the door to the hangar. Gres was already waiting for him, standing next to a small shuttle. Gres gave a signal to the pilot and the shuttle took off, they said their hellos and Gres started to fill him in on all small details. This hacker apparently had done some damage to the main servers on Tadath that took the techies a couple days to fix and clean up. She struck again a few weeks later, causing a large miscommunication between the VEN and headquarters, which prompted the bounty on her head. Since the bounty was issued she has caused a few more problems and now the VE sent out the mission to the Akodo mercenaries.

“Where do we start?” Zeshaun asked.

“Her last known location was here in Sianat.” Gres read off of his data pad.

“She’s been hiding out in Sianat?!” Zeshaun said in surprise. “How has she not been caught yet?”

Gres grinned, “Looks like the Storm troopers aren’t what they used to be.”

Zeshaun snorted, “I don’t think it’s our fault.”

They boarded an airbus and road toward the main city, away from the STC barracks and more toward the star port. Gres had said that the VE told him that she would probably be trying to catch a ship off the planet so he should start looking for her near the star port. Zeshaun looked at the image of her and burned the distinct features into his brain. Maria Orlan had shoulder length hair; it was dark shade of brown with streaks of blonde in it. She also had a very distinct tattoo on her right forearm, resembling some kind of predatory animal. The air bus stopped at the star port station and the two trandoshans got off, Zeshaun quickly scanned the plaza, but saw nothing.

“We might as well start asking around to see if anyone inside the star port has seen her.” Gres said with a sigh.

Gres sent Zeshaun the picture; they split up and started asking people working at the star port if they had seen the person in the picture. Zeshaun walked through a whole wing of the star port and had no luck; he never really realized how big the star port on Tadath was. He started on another wing when Gres’ voice blasted over his comlink.

“I found her, I think she’s running in your direction, I can’t catch her the crowds too thick.” He yelled.

Zeshaun turned toward the intersection and heard some shouts and screams coming from that direction, must be coming from over there Zeshaun thought as he tried running in that direction but he found the crowd was much too thick and didn’t seem to notice his sense of urgency. hate to do this Zeshaun drew his rifle and as soon as people saw it they started to move out of the way making it much easier for him to walk through the crowd toward the disturbance. As he got to the intersection he saw the person he was looking for, the brown hair with blonde streaks stood out from the crowd. Zeshaun ran as fast as he could toward her as she had already passed through the intersection and was heading toward a door at the far end of the wing. Zeshaun finally caught up with her as she fled through the door, he followed her and saw her running down the street. Zeshaun ran but couldn’t catch up with her; even with his rifle out the crowd was not being very cooperative. He suddenly saw Moria fall to the ground. Zeshuan caught up to her and saw Gres lying on top of her, putting some cuffs on her wrists.

“Nice tackle.” Zeshaun said, as he realized Gres had jumped through a window of the star port and tackled her as Moria ran by.

“Thanks.” Gres said breathing hard.

The two of them escorted her to the star port security and got a personal shuttle to bring them back to the RHA head quarters. Zeshaun and Gres joked with each other on the ride but kept a close eye on Moria through the whole ride. As they rode down the street Zeshaun noticed that they suddenly took a turn, going the opposite way from the RHA.

“What’s going on in there?” Zeshaun asked to the drivers.

“We’re not sure sir,” The pilot said nervously. “The shuttle started driving itself.”

“What did you do?” Gres said turning toward Moria who had a sinister grin on her face.

She stayed silent and sat, smiling. The shuttle started to drive erratically, swerving in and out of the road, narrowly missing other speeders on the road. It continued to go deeper into the city, away from the RHA. Zeshaun had to clutch to the seat to keep from falling to the floor, he watched as the shuttle picked up speed and the cityscape outside started to blur. The shuttle suddenly came to a stop sending Zeshaun flying toward the front of the shuttle, and hit his shoulder into the wall. The door opened by itself and Moria leapt out from the back of the shuttle and started to run down the street.

“Stop!”  Zeshaun yelled helplessly from the floor, trying to recover from the impact.

Gres staggered to his feet and got out of the shuttle limping around street, cursing in his native tongue. Zeshaun checked the pilot’s and found them slumped over the controls, one of their heads was bleeding. He checked their pulse and was glad to find that they were still alive. He quickly reported what had happened to the shuttle to the star port security so that they could come and help their injured comrades. Zeshaun got out of the shuttle and looked around the streets, there was no sign of Moria. He kicked a rock on the ground and sat down on the edge of the shuttle. The two trandoshans sat and tried to come up with some kind of plan, but without knowing the location of the hacker they had no idea where to start. A sudden image popped up onto every single projector on the walls of the buildings and the billboards around them and from the sound of it, the same image was being broadcast throughout the city.

“I am proof that the planet of Tadath is not safe.” A projection of Moria Orlan said. “I’ve survived two weeks without being captured despite causing damage to both the army and navy.”

“This isn’t good.” Zeshaun whispered out loud.

A sudden flash behind her caused a spark in Zeshaun’s head. I know that place anywhere Zeshaun thought as he suddenly noticed the scenery behind her. He recognized it as the area where he had first stood as a true trooper. Moria was standing in the parade ground of the STC barracks. she has some guts going to a place like that when she has such a large bounty on her head Zeshaun thought as he shifted his rifle on his shoulder. Gres got up to follow him but Zeshaun motioned that he stay there.

“You can barely walk.” Zeshaun said apologetically. “You know more than I do that you wouldn’t be able to help now.”

Gres sat back down and nodded, letting Zeshaun run back toward the main street. As he ran he started running into more and more traffic. He looked up at one of the billboards and saw that she was still talking about how unsafe Tadath was. Hopefully she’s still there when I get there. Zeshaun thought as he looked for a ride. He stood on the curb and tried to hitch a ride from someone but no one stopped to pick him up. He suddenly saw a red motorcycle coming down the road. Perfect Zeshaun stepped out into the street and the motorcycle screeched to a stop, the person got off the bike and started yelling at him. Zeshaun ignored the driver and just walked by him and got on the motorcycle.

“What are you doing?” The owner of the bike asked, very angrily.

“Sorry.” Zeshaun muttered as he revved the engine and sped off down the road, leaving the driver standing in the middle of the road.

Zeshaun kept glancing up at the different screens to make sure that the hacker was still talking. That girl is really full of herself Zeshaun thought. She had been talking almost nonstop for almost 5 minutes. He took a turn down a side street, and weaved in and out through the shoppers and vendors in the street.  When he came out of the side street he looked up at another billboard and was horrified to see that the video was no longer streaming. He sped up on his bike and arrived at the parade ground in just under 3 minutes. He stopped the bike and saw the panel she had used to hack into the cities projection outlets. Zeshaun threw down the bike angrily; he beat himself up for letting her get away. As he picked up the bike and was walking it out of the parade grounds he saw a leg disappear around the corner of the door leading farther into the academy. Zeshaun dropped the bike again and started running. He pressed the button to open the door what seemed like a million times before the door opened. Zeshaun ran down the hall, knocking over a few very surprised trainees. He stopped one trooper and caught his own breath.

“Have you seen a woman with shoulder length brown hair and a tattoo running around here?” He asked.

The trooper nodded, fear in his eyes and pointed down toward the firing range. Zeshaun gave a nod of thanks and started to run again. He entered the dark firing range and slowed down. He searched the wall for a light but the switch didn’t seem to work. she must be in here Zeshaun thought as he realized that she must have been hacking into the controls of the room. He cautiously walked through the dark room turning off the light on his rifle so that he wouldn’t attract any extra attention. Zeshaun wasn’t sure if Moria had a weapon on her but she was in a firing range so finding one wouldn’t be very difficult.  Zeshaun nearly had a heart attack when one of the dummies suddenly sprang to life and started to move about the firing range. Zeshaun stopped for and calmed his racing heart. He looked over the room and thought he saw someone that wasn’t a dummy running across the room but wasn’t sure. Another dummy sprang up and then another, with all the dummies moving around the room he couldn’t tell what was real and what wasn’t. He didn’t want to shoot at anything he wasn’t absolutely sure was Moria, he wasn’t sure what traps she had set but he didn’t want to find out, and furthermore, the fact that he couldn’t kill her meant that he had to make sure he didn’t hit a vital part of the body.

The silence was starting to scare Zeshaun; he didn’t like these kinds of silent standoffs where he couldn’t be in control over the outcome of the situation. He heard something fall and when he looked he realized that the dummies had stopped moving but were still there, and he saw a figure picking themselves up from the ground. Zeshaun snapped off a quick shot toward their leg but missed, his shot hit the wall creating a quick flash of light. He saw Moria for a split second and then heard the shuffling of feet and Zeshaun started to move to another position now that she knew where he was hiding. As he crawled along the floor he ran into  rack of weapons, and on that rack he discovered a small cache of flash bangs this could be useful Zeshaun put a bunch of them into his bag and started crawling again. He pulled out four of the flash bangs and pulled the pins I hope this doesn’t come out of my paycheck Zeshaun thought as he tossed them over the counter and closed his eyes. Even through his eyes were closed he could still see a small flash through his helmet visor and his eyelids. He also heard a grunt and the sound of a body hitting the ground. He jumped up and turned the light attached to his rifle on. He scanned the room and saw the body of Moria slumped over on the ground, clutching her eyes and groaning.

“Serves you right.” Zeshaun thought out loud as he walked over to her and hand cuffed her.

on second thought Zeshaun put the handcuffs back in his bag, withdrew a pistol and set it to stun. He aimed for her leg and fired. She stopped groaning and lay on the ground with a small mark on her leg. Zeshaun easily lifted her over his shoulder and walked out of the room. He grabbed a ride from one of the instructors at the academy and dropped her off at the RHA; Gres was waiting for him there.

“Looks like you’re doing more of the hunting than I am.” Gres said patting Zeshaun on the shoulder.

“You can be my manager then.” Zeshaun said laughing.