OOC:

Notes thread: LINK

Story Hooks to give you ideas: LINK

We will be using this thread to tie together all the individual stories we are writing as a prelude to doing a chapter 11, three years to write with to shake the rust off a bit and get used to writing with each other again.  And you know, have fun.  That's why we're all here.  When a new story branches off, we'll likely OOC link it in this thread to start it, and if it ends, try to make a similar conclusion post in this thread (only with the ooc tag at the end of the post to signify an end of a story).

That basically allows us to view this thread as a summary linking to the other stories and have a central thread that organizes the grand scheme of things.

==++==++==
23 ABY - Adrift Somewhere Between Systems in Former Vast Imperial Space [Approx. 3 years after Shattered Glass]
Bridge of the former VENI Frigate Juxtapose, currently masquerading as civilian passenger liner Cabarek
06:22 Standard Lotaith Time
==++==++==

Riqimo twitched momentarily as he gazed across the viewport of a changed starscape.  Not only had the political standpoint changed drastically… there was also one fewer specks of light that should have been there.  An empire had fallen, it had expanded far too fast and was struck hard by a surprise strike that few could have anticipated.  And all by the nemesis that kept the entire Imperial Intelligence Division on edge for years before: Thrawn.

“You alright Doc?  It creeps me out when you seem to stare into space like that, ya know, considering you lost your eyes there,” a young man in a crisp Vast Imperial uniform elbowed him, “I know you have the thermal prosthetic replacement under that mask, but it just… seems unnatural.”

Riq turned his gaze back towards the bridge and chuckled at the Zabrak, “You know it’s more than that, Petty Officer Hetus.”

“Yes, you can… sense something of an essence.  We prefer to think of thermal imagery to process the concept better.”

“How are your engineers doing on decrypting the files?”

“To be honest, we’ve never seen anything like it before, but the key pieces you were able to provide us with are coming together.  With maybe three more fragments of the encryption codes we can fully decrypt the coordinates.”

“Excellent.  It is finally time to finish Zero Niner, tell Ensign Braks to get us back to Tadath as casual as possible.  I need to borrow their communications network.”

A brash voice barked out from another corner of the bridge, “That’s Captain Braks now that you are a civilian passenger Mr. Pershaw.”

“If you weren’t such a good Captain at getting us through those binds we’ve had, I’d say it’s unwise to taunt a Dark Jedi,” Riq smirked back.

“The only thing dark about you is your humor.”

“Good then it’s settled, it’s now your bridge Braks.  I’ll be preparing in my quarters until we arrive. Hetus, ditch the uniform, we’re refugees now.”


==++==++==
High Council Army Intelligence SubOffice on Tadath, Siant City 20 ABY [3 Months after Shattered Glass and repelling of the Thrawnist Forces]
[Rebuilding Efforts have Begun]
00:13 Local Time
==++==++==

Riqimo muttered at another day of desk duty, looking through the window at the marketplace just off the downtown park that made up his scenic view.  A wasted view, really.  He had been bounced back and forth between the Dark Jedi Order and Army High Command due to his… somewhat neither really wanting him but not quite sure where to put him.

There was something about having a blind Dark Jedi around that made the army folks uneasy, even if they knew the man before the incident that caused his blindness.  In fact, it was a worse feeling all together.  It wasn’t that he couldn’t see really, they could accept the cybernetic thermal replacement he had.  It could have been the scars, or maybe the fact that he wore a mask to cover them up.  Cold blank durasteel eyes of a carved faceplate.

They couldn’t read him.  They had learned to judge people by their eyes.  Riqimo learned otherwise, somehow the Force flowed through his bursts of emotion.  And he felt them.  Empathy. And that is how he saw his way through a world, listening.

A Dark Jedi whose powers were literally boiled down to empathy.

Obviously he was... bounced back and forth after the Order had become somewhat more public and those outed in action became the face of the Order.  Empathy was an uneasy power to have around people.  He couldn’t read their thoughts, but he was accurate enough to do so.

He was quickly jostled from his thoughts by a wave of emotional urgency from his comms officer, “Hickson, what is it?”

Riqimo couldn’t see the color drain from the man’s face almost immediately as he slowly turned, but he felt Hickson’s spirit drain. Deeply, “Sir. High Command just ordered the execution of order zero-niner.  Thrawn was attacking.  Then the comms went dark.  The nearest station just cut in…”

A twitch of uncontrolled emotion twiched under Riq’s mask as he pulled up his hand to pause the man, but quickly stopped himself.

“... The system. The star. It was destroyed. High Command with it.”

Riq shook his head, “No, High Command wasn’t there, protocol 54 was initiated weeks ago when we had rumors of a Thrawn movement.  Were the coordinates sent out?”

“No, and we are getting reports of attacks from unknown class Imperial star destroyers on the edge of our system.  We are High Command of Tadath now.  What are your orders? Sir?”

Riqimo didn’t need to turn his head and look at the room, he could feel the surge of Vast Imperial loyalty through the gazes centered upon the back of his head.

“Zero-Niner is our last order.  We will execute it.  This isn’t just our system, they are hitting all of us.  Our first order is evacuate and destroy as much sensitive infrastructure as possible that we are not taking with us.  We won’t have coordinates, but the computer bank on the Dominion does.  I need every ship in this system defending her until we can extract the code sequence and decode it later.”

“Hinston, establish us as command immediately. Use my authorization codes.”

“Jeko, see if the dark communication satellites the VENI was seeding are live.  I remember a speech by Slasher three months ago before we made our big push against the original occupation. I want a secure line within in five minutes or however long it takes to make it secure.”

“Rest of you, you know your jobs.  Get the civilians under evacuation procedures. Rally the reserves and local militia.  We are getting off this rock.  Whatever took out Lotiath can’t recharge that fast.  Save as many as we can, pick up the pieces later.”

“Actually, Hetus, come with me and get Braks on the comms and to the hangar.  We’re going to the Dominion.  I will see as many of you on the other side as we can.  Use the Besh rally point.  Jeko, patch to my comms when you have the secure line.”

OOC:

Original OOC text: Wanted to get this up first for those patiently waiting to post their own stories between the time gaps and do some Char Dev and writing for fun. 3 whole years to write between for what will become a chapter 11 if we want to push the storyline further

Grent tightened his grip on the concealed blade hidden within his rugged civilian's disguise as he lean against the metal wall surrounding a former Imperial Navy starfighter hangar, now taken over by the New Republic. It was a staging post hangar more than anything, and with bigger and better equipped hangars nearby, the New Republic hadn't even bothered to empty it of its precious cargo to put their big, bulky, and, in Grent's opinion, downright ugly X-wings. It was that precious cargo that Grent and his fellow pilots were there to reclaim for the Vast Empire:

4 fully equipped TIE Avengers

This was not the first mission of this kind that Grent had undertaken. As a veteran member, and former SCO, of Strill, the VE's first pilot/commando squadron, he was used to infiltrating using only a starfighter and the kit that he could fit in there with him. It came in very handy when a shuttle full of armed stormtroopers would have been very difficult to slip past the New Republic's security, and allowed a small team to each fly in individually, from completely different directions, and at completely different times, with no apparent connection to each other. Grent and his team, unofficially named "Fearless Squadron" by the other cells, had used this tactic to infiltrate planetside and orbital installations for a variety of missions, including simple intel gathering or delivery, to the more classic "asset denial" or "asset acquisition" - fancy ways of saying "blowing things up" and "stealing stuff"! This wasn't the first time that they had had to steal ships either, though this was the first time they had tried to get new TIEs. It was a surefire way of knowing that things were about to heat up.

The intelligence on this particular raid had been passed through several cells before making it to Grent and his squadron. The TIEs were definitely there, and fully stocked. According to the sliced manifests, they were supposed to have been part of the planet based rapid response squadron, and were kept fully fuelled up and armed at all times to allow for immediate departure. They never launched, due to the simple fact that the pilots had been recalled to the fleet to supplement the massive casualities the Galactic Empire had received after Endor. No-one appeared to have told the droids, however, as they continued to maintain, clean, and service the abandoned but otherwise fully functional TIE Avengers. Even the New Republic hadn't bothered to stop them: the droids couldn't fly the ships, and the automated defence systems kept away any looters. For the new guys in charge, shutting down the hangar simply wasn't a priority - that was their mistake.

Grent had flown in on a refugee transport, like the rest of his crew. They had a mix of civilian ships they could chose from to fly themselves, but they didn't want to abandon anything that could be traced back to them, or that they would have to replace. Far easier to hide amongst the hundreds of civilians looking for a better life. The transport carrying the last crew member had been due several hours ago, and now they were all waiting at their pre-planned rendezvous points. Grent clicked on his implanted communicator, opening the heavily encrypted channel that Fearless used.

"Howdy folks," he said sub-vocally, the tiny transceivers embedded next to his vocal cords picked up everything and transmitting to his concealed comlink. They all had one, though the range was only around 1km.
"Evening boss," replied De'kla, his 2IC. De'kla was a Corellian by birth, and a former TIE test pilot on the shipyards. He'd flown more TIEs than anyone else on the team, though they were mostly just to transport them from the shipyards to the capital or transport ships. Still, he knew TIEs inside and out, and always had some tricks up his sleeve.
"Can we go yet?" came the excited voice of Qya, the youngster of the squadron. She was always full of energy and, despite being relatively small, was one of the fiercest fighters that Grent knew. He'd seen her take down what seemed like an entire platoon of New Republic soldiers singlehandedly, with ammo to spare. She was equally skilled with computers, and when she found something that she couldn't slice her way into, she wouldn't rest until she had figured it out.
"Cool your jets, Qya, we've got time," said Iluviella calmly. Her voice was silky smooth, and had a very seductive tone, which got her into a lot of places that people really shouldn't have let her into. In addition to being the team's resident succubus, she was the team's demolitions expert.
"Are we all in position?"
"Yessir."
"Yup!"
"Aye."
"Good. Then on my mark. 3. 2. 1.... execute execute execute!"

The two New Republic soldiers standing guard over the hanger's main entrance never knew what hit them, as Grent and De'kla approached stealthily from either side. They simultaneously stabbed them in the throats, as a garbage transport that had been commandeered by Iluviella pulled up, blocking the killings from view. The two men threw the corpses into the repulsor-truck, whilst Qya jumped off and started slicing her way through the door. She uploaded fake Imperial identities for all of them, and a virus that would wipe all the data from the system as soon as they had taken the fighters.

With the doors open, and the automated systems believing that they were meant to be there, getting to the fighters was a breeze. The droids even brought them flight suits and helmets from some hidden storage area. Meanwhile, Iluviella was planting charges in key structural locations all over the facility: their orders had been to leave no trace that they were there, and deny the use of the facility to the New Republic. Grent felt a pang of sympathy for the droids who had faithfully served their Empire for so long, with their only reward to be blown up. Still, the droids were machines and a liability to the mission, and whilst the virus that had been uploaded should have also downloaded onto the droids, there was still the risk that something had gone wrong. The last thing that any of them wanted was for their faces to be recovered off of the droid's memory and plastered all over the Holonet!

Final preparations complete, the four members of Fearless squadron slipped into their new fighters. Old hangar doors that hadn't been used in many years creaked and groaned, amber warning lights flashing, as the two giant lumps of metal slid apart to reveal the cityscape below. This next part was the least subtle, and whilst the roar of a TIE engine hadn't been heard by the locals in many years, it was far too distinctive of a sound to forget. It wouldn't be long after they took off that X-wings would descend on their location, which is why making everything as smooth as possible was crucial.

"Alright folks," Grent said using the fighter's comms, "let's see what these babies can do ..."

OOC:

WC: 1,180
AAR: Introducing the first four members of Fearless squadron, as they capture some old TIE Avengers. What will happen when they try to take off?