[Okay, this is a bit OTT, but I wanted to write a long story for this - it's been so long since I've written anything properly - so I've given it its own thread. I'm going to post it in chapters, so this isn't everything.]

Bomb da base
Combat engineer specialty story

Prologue

CRV Sweetums, 0730 hours

The briefing room was lit only by the viewscreen itself, a green-tinged land of shadows and smoke. A shadow moved across the screen, upright, and four-limbed, moving slowly, assuredly toward a podium on the right of the screen, clutching an oblong shadow at the end of one of its appendages. An orange glow lit a small area in the shadows facing the screen, followed by a small addition to the smoke already gathering in the room. A hollow click and the oblong shape detached itself from the other shadow and was added to the bulk of the podium. Another, different click, and the green on the viewscreen was replaced by an image of a building, snow-covered, military.

"Good morning, Sergeant Major," said a voice from the podium, "and well done on completing the preliminary training for the Combat Engineer specialty. Your scores were very high, compared to the average. We have high hopes for you."

The figure at the podium moved and adjusted the block on top of the podium. There was a slight rustle, as though something had brushed against the figure's arm as it moved across the face of the podium.

"Today's briefing is for your final assignment on the Combat Engineer training course: a combat mission in which your new skills will be tested to the fullest."

A click sounded in the room again, followed by a slight crackling sound, and another orange glow from the shadows in the seating area. Another puff of smoke added to the atmosphere in the room. The image on the screen was replaced by a blue-green orb, white slashes cutting across the blue and the green on a black background filled with pinpricks of white.

"This is Traivon IV. A neutral world in the Outer Rim. We suspect that it is home to several groups which deal in information. This means that they have installations which tap into the holonet and decrypt secure transmissions. We want you to go in, and take out these installations, if possible securing information and technologies. Your drop point will be here."

The image on the viewscreen changed again, showing a remote valley, isolated from the rest of the world from all but one side. Snow-capped peaks formed a guard of honour for this small kingdom of tranquility, resting alone amidst the barren rock of the mountains.

"You will go in by drop-pod. One-way ticket until the scheduled rendez-vous, twenty-eight days later, here."

The image changed again to that of a bustling spaceport backed by skyscrapers of steel and glass. A small transport ship was just nosing its blocky form above the smooth lines of the landing bays. People formed rivers, flowing between shops and ticket vendors and boarding ramps, with pools of calm around the few cafes and cantinas.

"In the meantime, you are to investgiate seven suspected locations. Determine their threat level, and eliminate them as necessary. This is an infiltration mission, Sergeant Major. Black bag, plausible denial. These places are not supposed to exist. The public information suggests they are sat-holo relay stations. Your squad-mates will be told that you are taking a medical leave-of-absence."

The image changed again to a green field marred by a squat grey structure of steel and concrete, sporting a large dish-antenna.

"Equipment will be aboard your shuttle, which departs at 0900 from bay 7B. Good luck Sergeant Major."

The screen switched off and the room was plunged into darkness, leaving only the small, orange glow from a cigar butt not quite extinguished.

--

Stonefish's quarters, 0810 hours

"It's a rare genetic condition," said Stonefish, "and requires special treatment."

"So? We have experts here, don't we?" replied Argon Viper, his large form crowding the small crew berth.

"Sadly, it's not that simple. If this were a known and documented illness, or one that a simple bacta-bath would cure, I wouldn't have to go away, but it's not."

"All this, and you only just got back, too!"

"Yeah, sucks doesn't it. Anyway, I'll be back in a month or so - you won't have chance to get that lonely."

Stonefish finished packing a few clothes into his carrybag. Thankfully he had packed the lower compartment for his weapons before Viper arrived at his quarters. The guns may have raised questions, though given the Whipid's proclivity for violence, who could tell what would raise his suspicions.

"Anyway, my shuttle leaves soon, and I want to get my gear stowed aboard. I'll see you in a month."

"Yeah, Fish, see you soon."

Stonefish picked up his gunbelt with his heavy blaster pistol and walked out, heading towards docking bay 7B, and the waiting shuttle. He watched the Sweetums' crew as they went about their business, officers in their green uniforms strutting up and down the gangways self-importantly, and the grey-suited crewers hurrying along carrying toolboxes and datapads. Stonefish wondered if he would be back in a month, or if this mission would be his last.

--

Docking Bay 7B, 0845 hours

"Sergeant Major, we expected you sooner," said a uniformed Navy man, waiting at the foot of the boarding ramp for the Lambda-class shuttle.

"Sorry, got held up in my quarters," replied Stonefish, walking over.

The shuttle was a civilian model, unarmed, unmarked apart from carrying the nameplate Daedalus. Stonefish wondered if that name held some sort of omen for his mission ahead.

"We'll be ready on time, Sergeant, so if you're ready, I'll show you to your berth," the Navy crewman gestured toward the boarding ramp, and walked up after Stonefish, directing him toward a small cabin on the starboard side of the shuttle.

After the crewman had left, Stonefish dumped his bag on the bunk and looked for the datapad underneath which, he had been told, would be carrying his orders. He felt it with his fingers, and let it be. He would not be opening it until they were underway, after all, so there was no point in removing it until then, just in case someone decided to come and say a last-minute farewell.

--

Lambda-class shuttle Daedalus, 1130 hours

Stonefish closed the hatch to his cabin and pulled his orders out from under his bed. He skimmed over the main part, most of it only fleshing out the briefing. Exact coordinates and times for insertion and retrieval, and the coordinates of the suspected information-siphoning stations, scrolling through to his equipment manifest. A heavy blaster pistol, 3 fragmentation grenades, 3 explosive charges; large backpack containing demolitions gear, light hand tools, wiring and sensor kits had been provided for the engineer work, and a speeder bike had been provided to allow Stonefish to cover the distances in the time involved. Enough supplies to last the twenty-eight days of the mission on light rations had been provided, though water would have to be found on-mission. Fortunately, Stonefish had packed a few of his own bits from his collection to round out the equipment - a whisper sniper rifle with a couple of clips, and a select-fire blaster rifle with enough power-packs to last unless he got into a serious firefight, plus the usual selection of pistols to scatter about his person. With this in mind, Stonefish began to consider his tactics for the mission ahead.

Walking over to the small cooler, he retrieved a drink and a glass from the shelf above it, and returned to the bunk to study the aerial photographs of each installation. The installations could all be reached within the time allowed, if the shortest route between each was taken. There was some small leeway for detours, but the whole mission was going to be tight if Stonefish was to make the extraction.

Looking through the supplied photographs, the veteran soldier began to inspect the building structure for possible weak points, and circled a few possibilities on each diagram. They would all depend on what was inside the buildings in question, but most of them looking good. A laser cutter and a few feet of cordite each, and they would crumple - prefabricated buildings were always the easiest to knock down. Stonefish looked over at his chronometer. Time to go to work, a lot needed doing in the two days it would take to reach the Traivon system.

--

Daedalus cargo bay, 1400 hours, two days later.

The drop pod was ready, a delta-shape, stealthed craft without engines to speak of, only repulsorlifts and thrusters, and small, stubby wings which ended in small aero-foils to give the craft some degree of maneuverability. As soon as the pod left the launch bay, it was going to be a one-way ticket down to the surface. Stonefish gave the craft a once-over to make sure that none of the panels were cracked or warped. If any were, the atmospheric interface would be spectacular, to say the least. The grey-haired man also checked the small hold to make sure everything was present, and checked the action on each of the weapons he carried himself. If something broke down there, he would not have an opportunity to repair it, nor parts even if he had the time.

"Ready to leave, then Sergeant Major?" asked the Navy Captain of the small shuttle, a young man, immaculately dressed in his duty uniform, rank cylinders polished until they gleamed, and creases showing in his trousers.

"Whenever you are ready, Captain," replied the old veteran.

"We'll becoming coming out of hyperspace shortly. As soon as we do, you'll be leaving. The small catapult here will give you enough velocity to make the atmosphere, and we'll be out of here before anyone notices, hopefully."

"Good," said Stonefish climbing into the small cockpit of the drop pod and closing the canopy. A hiss indicated that the cockpit was sealed and running on internal oxygen.

A small shudder ran through the shuttle as it dropped from light-speed, and the cargo ramp began to cycle open, the small force-field shimmering against the backdrop of Traivon IV and its sun. The red light came on above the ramp, and Stonefish braced himself.

"All right, Sergeant Major," said the Captain's voice over the comm, "You are in the green and ready to go. Good luck."

The small light flicked from red to green and the catapult fired the drop pod into space. Stonefish felt the sudden change in g-forces as he was pushed back into his seat slightly, the rest of the impact muted by the interial dampening field of the pod cockpit. He watched in the screen as the shuttle turned and shot back into hyperspace, backtracking along its previous course. He was alone now.

The planet approached with startling speed, and the retro-thrusters fired to bring the pod into a descent vector and the craft began to enter the atmosphere. The craft bucked and jumped as it began to encounter increasing resistance, rattling Stonefish's teeth together. This part of the descent needed no input from the pilot, so all Stonefish could do was grit his teeth and sit through it.

The nose, and the wing-tips began to glow red with the increased friction as the air began to get denser and denser around the pod, dropping at nearly two hundred kilometers per hour now. The cloud layer rushed up to greet it, and the retros fired again dropping the speed down by nearly half. Stonefish flew foward against his crash restraints, and was then push back into his seat as the descent resumed.

The mountains were ahead, their grey and white features stark against the green of the forest surrounding them, the trees seeming to lap and break against the peaks like a green ocean. The valley a small inlet, a cove on the beach of rock. The retros began to fire in short bursts, dropping the speed of the pos down further as its altitude began to approach zero. Finally, it dropped through the canopy of the trees and the repulsorlifts stopped it three feet off the ground, and slowly lowered it to land with a gentle bump.

Chapter 1

Traivon IV, insertion point, 0500 local time.

Stonefish slowly unbuckled his crash restraints, wary of the local gravity, not being familiar with the planet. Popping the seals on the canopy, the veteran warrior climbed out of the landing craft and surveyed his surroundings. The air was different here. A slightly bitter smell to it, though nothing to worry about too much. The gravity was a little lower than standard, which would make life a little easier, especially if he had to run anywhere.

The valley itself was well wooded, and provided good cover for his landing zone. The lack of engines on the drop pod meant that anyone who saw his landing would most likely assume it was a meteor. But then, Imperial Probe Droids give much the same impression, so it was possible someone would come to investigate.

Best not to stay here too long, Stonefish thought, moving around to the trunk of the pod, and opening the hatch.

The speederbike was first to come out, hovering under its own power once activated, the bulk of the demolitions gear had been strapped to the side of the bike like a saddlebag, while the rest came out in a smaller backpack, with the rifles strapped vertically to the back of it. Stonefish grabbed his blaster rifle, and clipped it to his utility vest, and put the power packs into their respective pockets, he then pulled on the backpack and climbed on to the speederbike, and flicked on the on-board computer to find out where he needed to go first.

The first installation was located twenty-five kilometers due west, through some pretty dense woodland which stretched pretty much all the way up to the facility itself. Setting the waypoint marker to active, the old soldier gunned the engines of the bike and shot off into the trees.

--

Target alpha, 0630 local time.

The guards were sat around a table talking and swigging from a bottle they passed between them. From the distance, Stonefish could not make out what they were saying, but they seemed fairly oblivious to pretty much anything. Stonefish put his macrobinoculars back in their pocket and considered his approach. If the guards continued their behaviour as they had until now, a looped approach around to the north side of the building would be the most discreet approach, since the trees ran slightly closer to the building in that direction.

The Wraith trooper shut down the speederbike, and locked it down with a two-hundred-digit hexadecimal code. Unlikely any old idiot who came along would have gear to break that. He retrieved the heavy backpack full of demolitions gear, and made his way around to north side of the small compound. The undergrowth was thick, but most of the plants had their leaves up off the dirt a little, leaving space to crawl underneath them right up to the chain-link fence that marked the edge of the facility. Lying underneath the vegetation, Stonefish looked at the building ahead. The intel he had indicated that the majority of the structure was subterranean, meaning demolition was a little easier than a ground-level structure, since the weight of earth above the building would help the collapse.

A small laser cutter made quick work of the fence, leaving a roughly semi-cirular hole big enough for a man to crawl through. The blocky grey structure of the signals station lay ahead, the small guard post and gate lay to his right, with a small path leading between the two. The entrance to the main structure was directly ahead, and the guards were facing the wrong way. Stonefish crawled through his hole in the fence and crept up to the corner of the guard post. Leaning around the corner, he drew a silenced pistol and put a round into each trooper's head. The two soldiers lolled forward limply in their chairs. That dealt with, he headed straight to the main door of the small building.

The large dish antenna hummed back and forth overhead, it's shadow waving back and forth over the small recess that held the doorway. The door was protected by a small keypad, but this proved no barrier to the supplied Hacktool, and the door pinged and swished open to reveal an elevator. Stonefish stepped in and pressed the only available button on the panel, which caused the door to close, and the elevator to descend into the earth. The elevator continued to descend for several seconds, before coming to a halt and opening again into a dimly lit corridor which stretched for around a dozen yards before ending in a small doorway.

Stonefish scanned the dim corridor quickly, and found the main power cables for the lighting circuit. A few blaster shots plunged the corridor into darkness, and the panicked noises from the room at the end indicated that the lights were out in there also. Stonefish made his way slowly down the corridor toward the door, lightly stepping across the plasteel gratings. The door was opened from within, and a torch-wielding technician made his way out. A shot from the suppressed pistol made sure he did not make any calls out to warn others. The dead man slumped and his torch rolled away framing two more technicians in a circle of yellowish light. Two more shots, and no one would be calling out of here for a long time.

The computers in the darkened room hummed loudly as Stonefish made his way over to a terminal. Checking the door again, he inserted the prepared hack-tool into the dataslot and waited. When the light on the tool changed from orange to green, Stonefish pulled out the tool and looked to the room. Plasteel supports held up the roof of the small room, which would fall given proper encouragement. Stonefish wrapped a joint of each support column in cordite and set the timer on a detonator pack. The veteran soldier sprinted back to the lift and set it to the top floor. As the doors opened on to daylight, Stonefish threw a small charge up through the maintenance hatch for good measure.

Back at the surface, Stonefish examined the dish antenna. A small ladder provided access to the dish itself, which was mounted on a motorised swivel allowing the assembly to turn. Stonefish wrapped the narrowest part of the gearing system in explosives, lit the blue touch-paper and retired rapidly. With almost choreographed precision, the charges both below and above went of simultaneously, the dish toppled elelgantly down to the earth, which collapsed beneath it as the cavern holding the computers caved in. A few thousand tons of rock, dirt and plasteel crashing down on the computers beneath ensured that little remained for those that would follow.

A whine caused Stonefish to run. The sound of repulsorlift vehicles approaching. Stonefish pelted back into the undergrowth and made his way back to his speederbike. He tapped in the activation code and gunned the motors, rocketing off into the undergrowth. With luck, those approaching would not be expecting to find trouble, so would have their sensors off.
 
-----------------------
Ramon Stonefish

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Version: 3.1
GCS/ED d- s:+ a-- C++++ UL P+ L++@ E---- W+@ N+ !o w--- PS PE t+ 5++ X-- R++ tv+ b+++ !DI D++ G e>++ h! r-- z-
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Chapter 3

The five members of the station staff were fixed in place, mired to the to wall by the same hard epoxy substance that covered the rest of the station. Stonefish walked over and inspected the bodies. Their breathing was shallow and their skin was becoming fully translucent. Each had a small bulge in their midsection as if something were pressing out from within, and each had a small black and red shell-like object attached to their bodies in some way. The shell objects were triangular in cross-section, about a foot long and tapered to a point at the end away from where they attached to the bodies. The veteran soldier reached up to check the pulse of the nearest corpse, and as he touched the clammy skin of the man, his torso began to ripple and bulge even further out, tearing and shredding as clawed hands burst through the skin.

As Stonefish watcehd, and black and purple shelled insectoid creature levered its way out of the man's body to stand in front of the grey-haired imperial. The size of the thing defied the fact that it had been inside a human male. As Stonefish began to back away, he could see the chitinous shell hardening up, and the thing emitted a series of clicking noises and its antennae waved slightly as its multi-faceted eyes looked around.

Stonefish pulled up his rifle and opened up on the creature, the armour-piercing rounds tearing through the chitin and out the far side of the creature. Bright purple ichor spewed out of the beast and left smoking tracks on the walls and floor. Stonefish saw the other bodies began to buck and writhe, and heard more clicking noises from elsewhere in the small complex. The Wraith trooper found the main structural support columns and set his charges quickly, with a three-minute timer. In the shadows, forms began to move.

Stonefish set the timer running and pelted for the door, as he approached, an insectoid flew through and at the highly trained trooper. Firing from the hip, Stonefish sprayed AP bullets at the creature as he stepped aside, allowing momentum to carry the corpse past. Suddenly, the black-garbed imperial became very aware of the small delay caused allowing the creatures on the other side of the room to catch up, and the timer ticking toward zero.

The lift shaft was ahead, and the corridor remained clear. Behind him, Stonefish could hear claws scrabbling on the slick surfaces as the insectoid creatures closed in. The imperial soldier caught hold of one of the rungs and began to climb. As one of the creatures reached the bottom of the lift shaft, Stonefish pulled out a high explosive grenade and dropped it down to the creature. It clinked on the floor clearly, and just as the stormtrooper pulled himself out of the shaft, the grenade and the demolitions charges went off simultaneously, and the dish and small building collapsed in to form a crater in the soil.

The Imperial warrior moved back toward the fence at a run, eager to escape the area. As he turned, one of the creatures leaped at him from the remains of the dish. It barrelled into him and knocked the man to the ground, diving over and rolling to climb back to its feet. Stonefish saw something glint on the inside of one of its arms and rolled aside as one of the small black and red shell objects slammed into the ground near him.

Implantation devices, thought Stonefish, These things are definitely parasitic.

The man snatched up his rifle and shot the creature dead, but he now knew why there had been so much traffic the last day or so. They had not been searching for him, they had been fleeing these creatures. As Stonefish made his way back over to his speederbike, he knew he had a whole new ball game ahead of him with the last three targets, and then to make his way to the rendez-vous for extraction.
 
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Ramon Stonefish

-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.1
GCS/ED d- s:+ a-- C++++ UL P+ L++@ E---- W+@ N+ !o w--- PS PE t+ 5++ X-- R++ tv+ b+++ !DI D++ G e>++ h! r-- z-
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