Darr-Rann couldn't help but grin as he watched Namyr squirm nervously in her seat – everyone had their fears, and apparently, the Twi'lek couldn't stand space travel.

The rest of the raiders didn't show any of fear – They had been through boarding training plenty of times, and had even run a few simulations on assaulting this very type of platform.

“Alright, here's the plan.” The squad leader said. “Each of you have been giving magnetic disks, extra  oxygen canisters, and explosive charges. We don't intend to do much fighting, so your carrying a light armament of stormtrooper armor, e-11 blaster rifles, and a small satchel of blaster packs.

“The explosives are prepared, adhesive, and detonate VIA remote trigger detonator. They will be essential to complete our mission objective.

“We will hit the platform on the outer edge, cutting through the haul. We will clear out nearby enemies, then latch ourselves with our magnetic disks to whatever available surface and the boarding ship will pull out. When the atmosphere has been dumped from the section, we will unclip and proceed inward. We will punch open sections of the haul with our charges as we advance, creating further drain upon the oxygen distribution until the entire platform's life support fails.

“Once that is done, we find the targeting computer and destroy it with our remaining charges. With this done, the platform should be completely disabled, and we'll extract either by our boarding ship or by calling in pickup from a nearby ally.”

He looked at the mission time on his datapad – twenty minutes until estimated arrival.

“Get ready.”

Marka slipped his blade into the make-do sheath attached now to the left waist of his armour. Luckily enough, the suit, though considerably bulkier than the regular armour, was quite manoeuvrable and allowed a decent amount of dexterity whilst using the blade. His vibrosword wasn’t very clean; he’d forgotten to polish it again. Luckily no one had noticed as of yet.
  Shouldering an A280, Marka stepped out of the hold, completely suited and ready for another battle. Again, this mission would require an enormous amount of luck if one was to survive.

“...ETA is 2 Minutes so I give you one off before we enter the airlock.”

Marka looked down at the steel flooring of the vessel, taking in the basic pattern of the metal, his eyes wandering over the worn edges of the bolts holding the thing together. A few seconds went by, and the bustling of the squad was drowned as Marka’s mind shut itself off from all reality for that solitary minute.

The steel walls were stripped bare, and then vanished in a green veil. Each of his squad mates faded from vision, and in their stead stood mighty trees, crowding the area around him. Birds and other wildlife could be heard above. And below. And everywhere. Off to Marka’s right, far off, the sound of running water could be heard. He listened as it splashed against rock, cascading down. He imagined the fish flowing through, the water lapping at the banks of a river.
  Behind him, across his exposed back, he felt the gentle caress of morning sun. His skin tingled, the hair on the back of his neck slowly standing. He turned to look at it, and found its appearance to be as delicate as its feel. The sight of it did not blind or hurt him. He looked at it without squinting, without having to adjust his eyes. It was simply another part of the world around him.

And then all at once he was again confined to the metal prison of the ship. Around him, each of the squad members had prepared themselves for the coming danger. It would only be a matter of moments before they were cast out into the abyss of nothingness. That was their mission.

Darr spoke up once more: ““Okay Troopers, this won't be easy but we are not here for the easy jobs, are we? Make me proud! RAIDERS!”

As if they all shared the exact same train of thought, every Raider lifted their voices and cried out, “FAITHFUL!” And with that, the doors were wrenched open, an incredible pull took hold of the squad, and one by one they flew out into space. Marka had only been on a single space mission beforehand, and it hadn’t worked out very well at all. He hoped, desperately hoped, that this mission would turn out as planned.

OOC:

Short post, but it's late.

It was majestic. Raider Squad swooped down to the Platform like a group of hawks. When Darr was halfway down the defense systems had picked them up and started blasting away. But as predicted there was a blind spot. Not enough for a Tie or even a larger vessel to squeeze through, but the Spacetrooper gear did the trick. Further down Eviscares could see his Squadleader and that Twi'lek girl doing some spirals while they sped down, yelling enthusiastically while doing so.
This was not really an option for him, as he had chosen to take an almost antique piece of armament with him, a republican Z6. Large and unwieldy for a normally armored trooper but just perfect for him now. It's top notch ability to 'saturate' areas with fire should come in handy.
All around him were green blasts, as the automatic defenses tried to pick off what must appear as a comet on the sensors. It made him a little bit nervous when he thought about how he would look after taking such a blast.
Suddenly Darr fell silent and just as Evis touched down on the platform the rest of the Squad did too. This meant that Darr had decided to mute everyone, as D'kaleth assumed he just got a transmission and needed to concentrate. So he joined Namyr in her effort to tear up the hull section they were standing on with the suits integrated plasmacutter.
One by one the rest of Raider squad joined in, everyone who touched down immediately getting to work. They formed a large circle, just as in training. Only Darr was not in his spot. He still stood tall above them all, his head shaking all the time. Then he spoke up again:”Ok Raiders, this was HQ.  There will be a problem with the pickup. We will have to disable the hangars as well, as they can't spare any fighters. But that is secondary. First objective is still taking out the weapons.”
That being said, the Squadleader dropped down on his knees as well and started working. Soon they had created a circle of 3 meters in diameter, that only needed a proper detonation do get sucked out into sky.
“Marka, Evis, if you would be so kind to knock on the door.”,  he gave the order that the two combat engineers had only been waiting for.  Each of them moved up to one part of the hole to be. Eviscares took the upper region, Marka the lower. Afeter some tinkering and setting up the explosives they fired their trusters again to jet away.
“Ready to knock?”, Evis asked and together they counted down from five.
What happened next, no training could have prepared them for.  The vacuum sucked away the inner part of the hole they had created, just as planned. But what came next was horrible.A crew membert that was passing along the corridor they breached at that moment got pulled out. The rapid decompression had led to bloating. Before the eyes of assembled Raider squad his stomach ruptured.
“I think I have to puke...”, Evis murmured. Everyone watched in Terror at what they had done. But then their professionalism kicked in and put them on a kind of override. One after the other they jumped through the hole and assumed battle positions. One fireteam covering each side of the corridor.
All around them the lights turned red and a voice announced “Hull breach in section E23. Breachdoors now closing. Everyone man Battlestations!”
”Now... we are screwed!”, Evis thought. This would be classical soldier work. A lot of shooting crying and dying.
“Ok, no sense in splitting up. we'll try to advance down that corridor.”, Darr decided.
As fast as they could they were on their way.

Marka, crouched uncomfortably beside a large steel canister, fired round after round blindly at the opposing troops as they began taking position at the other end of the hallway, just inside the blast doors. One of them fell quickly, a smoking gape in his chest caused by Leon’s rifle. Marka thought he could almost see Leon’s cheesy grin through his helmet.

Down the hall, Marka knew, Eviscares was preparing the wall to be blown apart. Because of the Raiders being somewhat outnumbered at that time, the squad seemed to be in agreement that vacuum damage was the best damage. It was only a matter of time before the wall would be destroyed and the enemy crushed by the vacuum of space. All the Raiders had to do was magnetically clip to the floor...

There was a deafening crack as the wall gave way to the explosion. A few of the Raiders realised that they had not magnetically clipped themselves in yet, and desperately threw their arms at their suits. Marka, shaken somewhat by the incredible pull of the blast, had a brief moment of thoughtlessness, and was consequently thrown into the wall opposite him. Luckily enough, he was wedged between thick piping, and wasn’t going anywhere quickly. Unluckily, however, the force of the impact had Marka bordering on unconsciousness, and would not know the full effect of the explosion until afterwards.

Vision diminishing, Marka snuck a glance down the hall, watching bodies fly away from him at rapid speeds. His blurred sight didn’t allow him to distinguish between friend and foe. Only a moment later did his eyes blacken completely and all went dark.

OOC:

Sorry again. Just could not think of anything more to write.

Darr-Rann screamed out as he clung to the floor with his magnetic clip, fighting off the blackout. Soldiers from the new republic force flew by, many of them shattering their bones on various objects before being pulled outside. He gritted his teeth and waited...

The pulling stopped. Darr-Rann looked at his atmopshere status indicator to see that the section had been drained. He looked around and sighed with relief – The entire squad had made it. Leon had been thrown fairly far and had broken a few ribs, but otherwise was okay. Marka had blacked out, but he was quickly revived.

“What happened?” Darr-Rann asked Eviscares, who was just getting up from the floor.

“I dunno.” The trooper replied, shaking his head, “I didn't trigger the detonator, just armed it. I think the explosive's detonator was faulty.”

Darr-Rann sighed. He was going to have a word with the engineers back at military arms after this mission was done with.

He nodded to the blastdoors, which had closed shortly after the explosion. “It's time to move on.”


Real short, but I was low on inspiration, and I just wanted to move us along a bit.

When Marka’s vision finally returned, he was surrounded. His first thought was that his entire team had perished from the premature explosion, leaving him the only survivor, now encircled by the enemy. At that thought, he reacted subconsciously and gripped the hilt of his sword, trying quickly to get to his feet. He staggered slightly, finishing his movement on one knee, both arms resting on his thigh, his head cradled there.

“You right there, Marks?” someone said, with a slight accent.

Looking up, Marka realised that he wasn’t in the danger he originally thought. His team were more-or-less intact, as far as he could tell. Slowly he got back onto his feet, the others in his squad knowing better than to help him up.

“What the bloody hell happened then?” Marka mumbled, sounding somewhat agitated.

Evi spoke up, “Charge was faulty. Exploded a little... early.”

“No shit...”

Marka gave a nod that he was alright, and the squad gripped their weapons once more and proceeded down the corridor. The steel walkway left no sound un-echoed. Every footstep could be heard, Marka thought, a mile away.

Then again, this never really was supposed to be a stealth mission

The squad turned a corner at Darr’s command, and stumbled upon a small congregation of Republic soldiers. Apparently, they were aware that the Raiders would be along shortly. Had they not been slightly taken aback at the size of their opponents in their armour, the Republicans would have toasted at least two of the Raiders. But, in their brief period of hesitation, each member dived behind some of the make-do cover scattered throughout the hallway.

A shot rang past Marka’s head as he fell behind a solid, waist-high crate. He turned to his right and saw a bolt brush Darr’s arm. It did little but blacken the surface of the armour, but it was still a worrying sight. If anyone was going to fall, the last person Marka wanted it to be was Darr, for logical and personal reasons.
  Darr had been there before Marka left, and their friendship had not wavered since his return. He was Marka’s oldest friend. One of the few friends that were still alive. But also, if the Squad Leader were to fall first, the morale would plummet and the mission would balance on the brink of failure.

With a quick shake of his head, Marka raised his rifle over the top of the crate and fired, missing with the first shot, but landing a brutal headshot with the second. It blasted through the cheekbone of the soldier, sending him spiralling to the floor in a mess. The man next to him, shaken by the death, was cut down quickly by Namyr.

After the last few troops were finished off, the Raiders recollected themselves, scavenged anything of use from the still smoking corpses, and ventured the rest of the way down the corridor. They passed by what appeared to be a med-bay that had been very recently stripped of all medical supplies. There was a single roll of bandaging at the very far end of the room, but that was all. At the end of the hallway was a locked door that usually would require a keycard to open.

“Evi, Marka, open those doors if you would,” Darr said, motioning them forward.

“Hey Evi,” Marka asked, noting his lack of charges, “Where the hell did my stuff go?”

“Had to use them. No biggie. Just grab the plasma cutter and get to work on the right hand side.”

Not long later, the door was jerked upwards, allowing each Raider to make their way through. They still had to duck a little though.  Marka smirked as Rogueboy bumped his head on the way in.

“Shut up...” he commanded jokingly, noticing Marka looking at him.

Darr-Rann fired another burst of shots, watching with satisfaction as another enemy's suite was punctured.

Raiders was greatly at advantage in the vacuum setting. While they were outnumbered greatly, the enemy's equipment was designed for maintenance and emergency rather then combat – It lacked a great deal of armor plating, and could easily be compromised with a single hit. When the raiders fired their weapons, death rapidly followed.

The only problem was that they were severely outnumbered. The station was a huge, and had a complement of soldiers aboard to match. Darr-Rann paused to ponder just how many lives they were taking in this operation.

He shook his head – That wasn't the way to think about it. Rather, he should be thinking about how many Vast Imperial lives they were going to save when this platform was disabled.

Eviscares and Marka finally finished opening the wall. “Alright, let's get moving.” The squad leader said, firing one more burst at the enemy before pointing at the passageway.

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

Captain Marcus Wran swore as another section of the platform begun to leak. The troopers that had boarded their ship were taking a risky but dangerously effective strategy. He immediately ordered his engineering officer to cut the newly assaulted area off of the life support system.

The doorway flashed, and a group of soldiers walked in, pulling a cart behind them. The captain nodded to them and they began to assemble one of the e-webs. Along with a pair of the weapons, the cart also carried a supply of space suits. If this squad of stormtroopers were headed to the bridge, they'd be ready.

“Get dressed. If they continue at this pace, it wont be long before they break in here and come for us too.”

OOC:

Short post, wanted to move the story along. Get writing!

Darr pondered for a moment, it seemed, on what to do. Marka was watching him, allowing himself to glance down the hall every few seconds. The smoke would clear soon, and the Raiders would be in a very tight spot. Their bulky uniform was tough, yes, but didn’t help conceal them from the enemy. They stuck out like a sore thumb.

Darr opened a channel to the whole squad, “Evi, flash them. The chances of them having auto-dimmers are low enough to risk it. Marka, you follow the grenade in. I will be behind you with the rest of the squad. When you get there, cut your way through them.”

Marka made a throaty laugh, quickly wrapping his fingers around the hilt of his vibrosword. He felt more powerful just holding it. A few images of ravaged corpses flicked across his mind, causing a wicked grin to form on the trooper’s mouth.

Before long Evi had tossed the grenade and Marka was striding down the hall behind it. It exploded, causing him only a moment of unpleasantness. He got to the blast area and turned to his left, spotting an enemy soldier right away, on the ground in the foetal position, covering his eyes. Marka stood over the body, his blade in both hands pointing down. He felt a rush of euphoria as he plunged it downwards into the exposed neck of the man.

He moved on, doing the same to another. But the effect of the blast was soon to wear off, and Marka hoped that the Raiders had taken the other side just as effectively. There were three left on Marka’s side; that he could see. The first two were looking very vulnerable, and rather scared. The furthest away wasn’t moving, at all, but showed no signs of being hit by anything.
  Stepping along, Marka lifted his boot high and brought it down forcefully on the first man’s skull. Marka let loose a quiet laugh as he heard and felt the bone crunch and collapse. Apparently the second man saw that, and looked up at Marka in terror. Like a lamb to the slaughter, the man backed up against a wall, leaving virtually no way out. Marka arrived in front of him and lifted his blade. The man began to tremble and held up his hands. The swing from Marka’s blade cut the tops of most of the enemy’s fingers off before it broke through the cheekbone. The vibrosword was lodged in the skull.

Behind him, Aphamos was stepping over what was left in Marka’s wake. And he saw the Raider standing proudly over a body, one boot on the shoulder, both hands wrapped around the vibrosword, trying to wrench it out of his victim. But Marka had forgotten all about the third man, whom he had passed to execute the second one. The Republic soldier was rising slowly, a large dagger in one hand. Marka was unaware, but Aph chuckled, raising his rifle and firing, splitting apart both kneecaps of the soldier.
 
Marka turned as the shots were fired. Now squirming was the soldier he had neglected to finish, too enthralled in his bloodlust and the overwhelming desire to kill the other man. Aph was standing about five feet away, cradling his rifle, looking satisfied. But he didn’t gloat, he simply nodded and turned back towards the squad.

Marka did the same.

"Kika'lekki, please let me live," Namyr thought to herself as her hand tightly held each other as the ship took off.  She closed her eyes tight and her lips became a thin line, she opened her eyes wide to try to confront her fear, but could find nothing and closed her eyes tight again.  Fondly, she thought of the days where Rogueboy would annoy her enough for her to forget her fear and calm her down.

Namyr let out a sad sigh looking over at Rogueboy who was doing something on a datapad.  She admited it, she missed him, she had lost her best friend, and it felt like she had lost a lot more then that, like another half of herself.  Riqimo couldn't understand why she had cried for days after Rogueboy had yelled at her and stormed out of her apartment, probably to go drink himself to death.  And truth be told she couldn't explain to him why she cared for Rogueboy so much.

Namyr choked back tears, holding her mouth shut afraid of vomiting into her helmet as the ship lurched a little.  She resisted the urge to get up and knock the hell out of Rogueboy to knock some sense into his thick skull, didn't he know this was as hard for her as it was for him?  That he was still her best friend and that she missed him?  Namyr's hands shook as Darr went over the plan, great jumping from the ship into space in the fleeting hope of landind on another ship and be magnitized to it.  She needed to get another job, like a florist or something.

They stood up and Namyr stood last in line to jump, her one leg shook, and she was glad to be in the back so the younger recruits couldn't see her fear.  As Aphamos booted Rogueboy out of the ship, Namyr walked past him and smacked him in the back of the head.

"What, what did I do?" Aphamos asked her in wonderment, before Namyr pushed Aph out after Rogueboy and jumping herself.  Namyr let out a scream, which she hoped that the rest of the squad thought was out of fun and not out of fear. 

"Clunk," her feet hit the metal of the station sticking there.  Namyr dropped to one knee to keep her dizziness in check.  An explosion overhead cleared Namyr's thought of puking and instead following behind everyone else.  They paused waiting for Evi, a new trooper that had a little too much spunk for Namyr's liking returned and gave them a thumb's up.

The Raider's were in the station before the men in the halls knew what was going on.  Instantly, Namyr's force pike was spinning preparing to take out one of the guards, only to have a shot take him down before she could even get near him.  Namyr let out a fustrated growl and turned around to see Rogueboy putting his rifle behind his back and pointing at Leon.  Namyr shook her head, biting her lip as she walked over to Marka.

"You okay Namyr," Leon murmured to her through a private channel.

'Yeah,"

"Good because I'm not doing so hot," Leon grumbled like a little kid.  After Namyr had taken care of her team, well medical wise, she was instructed to stay with Leon and Marka, until Marka was awake and when the meds took affect for Leon.  Avi because putting together so explosives to blow open a door giving Namyr time to think.

"Nams, you've seemed different you know?" Leon began again, Namyr put up a hand not wanting to talk about her personal problems right now.

Another explosion and Marka jerked awake, 'Namyr quickly told him some soothing words before she handed over the questions to Evi.  Namyr's eyes narrowed as she pulled out her rifle, seeing movement through the smoke she fired, the movement dropped to the ground and didn't make a noise.  Namyr crouched low and moved forward, glancing to the side she saw she had taken a postion next to Rogueboy.  Her lip became a thin line as she watched him fire and she returned her attention back to the smoke which was begining to clear away.  when there was no more movement both her and Rogueboy got to thier feet and moved forward, Namyr smirked as she saw Rogueboy using her silent walk she taught him as they moved.

“We need to head to the bridge and disable the captain, and crew. Therefore we can take over the automated defenses,” Darr's voice echoed over the music in Namyr's helmet, her and Rogueboy took the front, force pike in her hands, Rogueboy's rifle in his.  Normally, well back before his leave, Namyr and Rogueboy were the perfect team, he was distance she was melee, they could take down a squad of twenty and joke about it later.  Even now Namyr couldn't feel the unity they use to have, their very footsteps were out of place.

"Whatchit," Namyr growled ruffly slamming Rogueboy against the wall in time to miss gunfire, they side down behind a crate.  Namyr and Rogueboy looked at one another, and was silent for a moment.  Namyr wondered if he was wondering about their first mission together as well. 

"Get back and get down!" Rogueboy yelled, firing off his rifle, breaking the moment.  Namyr's teeth grit together, her force pike humming to life.

'Like old, time, cover me okay?' Namyr murmured to Rogueboy.

"Yeah, Nams I got your back," Rogueboy said in a voice that she could almost see his grin.

"Rogue," Namyr added getting up on one knee preparing herself, "I'm sorry, and you're still my best friend, even more then that," she said gruffly bounding overt the crate in the lull in the gunfire.  Behind her she could hear Marka come out of cover as well his vibroblade humming to life.

Namyr let out a dark yell as she came onto the enemy forces and between her and Marka they easily took out the second wave, "Let's move forward," Namyr said looking ahead and waiting for the rest of the squad to catch up.

Namyr pursed her lips and was silent, why was she even talking to Rogueboy, it would probably in the end only get her in trouble with Riqimo, and make the seperation from him even more painful in the future.  She really did hate herself, moments like this made her realize how horrible of a person she was.  Would she really be that cruel to string Rogueboy along, giving him some slim hope that she would someday come back to him?  A happily ever after, even if Namyr, though bitter as she was, hoped for it, would never happen.  Happy endings weren't given to troopers, medals, ranks, and money were, happiness wasn't part of the corps agenda, and Namyr wouldn't start now in hoping it would.  But could she really live without Rogueboy?  Through all the pain they would have to go through in the future was she strong enough to let him go?  She knew she couldn't while he was on leave even with Riqimo's soft words and touches she still missed him, it felt like a piece of her had been ripped out leaving her dry and wrinkled, a shell, no more like a husk of the person she was.  Where Riqimo was her rock to keep her from being tumbled into the ocean and drowning in herself, Rogueboy was her life, giving her hope and filling her with a carefree, light feeling, giving her a reason to get out of bed and continue working.

"I didn't have a change of heart, that confrontation in my apartment in front of Riq made it clear what you thought of me, I believe your words closely resembled that I was a man eating harpy, or something along those lines," Namyr said a little bitterness showing in her voice before she smiled, "Let's face it Rogue, we might see other people, but in the end we need each other equally or we'll fall apart."

"So you don't want me to return the music pod you gave me?"

Namyr blinked few times before playfully hitting the back of Rogueboy's helmet, "Rogue, hello those were gifts, you're not suppose to take back gifts, that's rude," she said and laughed at him.

He grew tired. Quite naturally. The tension of this mission was higher than in any other he conducted before. Not even on his flight to cepany had he felt so lost. This station seemed to be more than endless and the forces that were thrown at him and the rest of the squad were massive.
Even though they were not very dangerous and their attacks more like need pin-pricks, they were a lot. And a man could also die if you only inflicted enough of those on him.
Right now his and Markas only protection was the injured Leon, while the rest of the Squad made their way towards the Hangars.
Great..., he thought. Not that he considered Leon unable, but they surely could use some more backup.
Besides that, the idea wasn't half bad. Kill the bridge personell with the vacuum and then take a ship out.
If Darr got injured on the way to the hangar, he could always fill in. He just hadn't mentioned his flying skills because he knew Marka would need a hand up here.
"How is it coming along up there?", Rogue requested to know. When he was on the com that meant that Darr was once again talking to HQ about the newly change in plans.
"Everything fine and dandy here.", Leon replied.
And somehow Evis felt he was right. They were almost through the first layer of armor and it would only take them some more minutes to breach the hull completely.
"He Marka, if I knew that being combat engineer meant that you are always doing all the work, I would've signed up for medic or some other lame stuff like that", he said jokingly to his colleague,
earning a hearty laughter.
There had definitely been some kind of bonding between the two of them in this mission. That kind of bonding only combined efforts under enemy fire could produce.
The thought of bonding made him pause for a second. Thinking of Kami and Angel again. He still remembered Kami's muted scream of terror when he jumped that hole in the floor of the transport they were defending. A jump she had managed with the force but for Evis it had been a leap of faith. She had really taken him under her wings after that and maybe cared most about him of all those whom he met.
Clunking the heavy helmet against the wall, he got himself back to the present he was in this spacestation and had a job to do.
He fired up his plasmacutter to maximum energy output and started tearing away the thick armor molecule for molecule.

But then it happened. The burning plasma hit one of the supply pipes and ignited the normaly not very dangerous chemicals flowing inside. The sudden explosion caused a backfire in his plasmagauntlet which violently exploded. A maddening pain overcame Eviscares together with an extreme feeling of fear. It all happened so slowly but much to fast to do anything. Before the shock engulfed him, he felt the suits antidecompression system sealing of the breach, severing what was left of his right hand from his arm.

The last thing he heard before everything went pitchblack was Marka yelling for a medic.

A blaster bolt hit the corner of where Rogue’s head was a second ago. The squad had run into an ambush of pilots leaving their barracks to enter their ships, it was fortunate perhaps there will be some ships left for us to commandeer. Rogue had thought as the men in the orange jumpsuits were armed with pistols and droids.

The droids made Rogue think of Patch, his little R2 unit who was back on Tadath waiting in a room for Rogue to return. It had saddened the ASL to think of what might happen to the little droid in case he died, then again Rogue thought it was a robot and as such had no feelings. That was not necessarily true the trooper corrected himself; the droid did give off some emotions, most of them hard to discern at first  but he had quickly understood the binary beeping sounds and was able to respond without the use of a terminal or binary translator. Rogue was now able to tell many of Patch’s moods and the droid seemed to be in high spirits as opposed to Rogueboy’s moody one as of late.

A New Republic pilot went down screaming as a bolt hit a piece of durasteel and blew shards of metal into his chest. Rogue jumped over the fallen pilot, leaving him to an agonizing slow death. It wasn’t because the Raider’s ASL was lacking in pity or was a cruel person; it was because if he took the time to put the man down it would waste his precious energy supply as well as lose the initiative in his rush. He bowled through a pilot and grabbed the man by back of his helmet as he was falling, Rogue quickly smashed the pilot’s helmet and face against the durasteel floor at least a dozen times; leaving a bloody pool of brains, skull, and mashed up metal. The squad quickly followed as the pilots performed a delaying action; a couple popping out and offering covering fire while those in front retreated to an area with better coverage.

Ahead Rogue could see a couple of X-wings parked in the hangar and the blast doors were closing behind the retreating pilots. Rogue dove through the closing blast doors and shot the keypad that controlled it. What the trooper didn’t know was that by shooting the keypad it would make the door slam shut immediately. Alex was staring at about fifteen scummy pilots who were all grinning at him.

“Shit.” Rogue yelled into his comlink as he realized the serious error that he had made. Now it came down to a hard choice; die on your feet, or live on your knees.

Possibly live or die it wasn’t a hard choice for Rogue to make; he wasn’t a gambler. A short burst fired out of his customized A280 killed one pilot and injured another; there was no nearby cover that Rogueboy could utilize so he had to rely on the pilots’ inexperience with firearms. The Raider’s ASL ran as fast as he could towards an X-wing in an attempt to use it as cover; he couldn’t fly the damn thing because he had no idea how.

There was an explosion and Rogue was hurled at least five feet closer to his destination as one of the fuel dispensers was hit by a stray blaster bolt and ignited. A hole was blown through the hangar floor and the containment field sputtered before fading. The magnetic locks were still in place from when he had activated them outside and was thankful as the pilots we sucked out. The ships remained in place as they had magnetic clips that kept them in place held.

Rogue tuned into the squad chatter and a heard a few screams for a medic and Namyr responding. There were a few calls for him especially after the explosion but the ASL ignored those for now; he needed a break. The trooper was sore and his leg was making an odd popping sound every time he took a step, but it wasn’t broken. He took a seat and leaned up against the wall right next to the blast doors and closed his eyes, applying some mental techniques that Namyr had taught him in order to numb the pain and to calm his mind.

“I repeat Rogue are you alright?” A worried voice said over the comlink, a private channel was beeping rather annoyingly; it was Namyr asking if he was all right

“I’m alright, need to find a way out of this hangar. How is Evi doing?” Rogue asked his concern for the quiet trooper fairly genuine; he had always preferred a quiet trooper to a raucous one.

“He lost his arm and his blood pressure is extremely low, if we don’t get him to a hospital he might be in some serious trouble. Darr is working on the door to get it open but says its some kind of NR code that he has never seen before. Going to take him a while before he can crack it, so you’re going to have to sit tight.”  Namyr said in a resigned tone.

“How are you holding up?” Rogue said to strike up some idle chatter.

“I hate space, nothing out here but stupid rocks and dead bodies.” Namyr said in a childish pout tone.

Rogue laughed as he remembered the hole the explosion caused through the floor. “Nams I’m going to jump down to the floor under us. Crap I gotta tell that to Darr.”

He was standing in the middle of the hangar, with his hands out to the sides. His modified DC-15 was slung around his back as a customized A280 was aimed dead center of his chest. Right when he touched down he transmitted the friend or foe comlink access, command had given him. He was really hoping the squad had not changed codes, otherwise he was about to be blown back into space. The trooper who had him aimed dead center was shouting, demanding to know who he was. He could see the trigger being ever so slowly pulled back, his own had was making slow move to one of his DC-15s. Just then at the bottom of his HUD the message comlink established flashed.

  "Private First Class, Joamer Reistlin. Raiders Squad. Do not fire, I repeat, do not fire. Identity confirmation, code zero zero one alpha, niner five omega. Squad leader please confirm." Joamer nearly shouted.



  Couple tense moments later a haggard voice broke the silence, "Identify confirmed, friend or foe code acknowleged. Rogue, don't fire just yet. Tell me a good story, or I will order Rogue to vape you."


"I set out two days ago from the Academy. I was assigned to this Squad. I jumped in to the fleet staging area, and received the code. A ship dropped me off out of range of the station and I floated in. I assumed the Hangar would be the best bet, since I heard someone was stuck in here alone." He explained, then waited.


"Welcome to the Raiders." someone said as the blast doors opened, and the rest of the squad ran in and took up positions to eather side of the door. One of two of the squad was limping, another was being supported by two people, who seemed to be unconscience and in bad shape. Slipping his DC-15 back around he kneeled down beside one of the crates still in the hangar.


  "Alright, heres the situation for anyone who has been asleep the past few minutes. We have several people wounded, and one unable to walk who needs medical attention very soon. The way I see it we have two choices remaining. Eather we go for a nice walk outside and blow the command center up that way, or we hijack some of these nice ships, and blow the room up on our way out." Darr-Rann said.


"How many can that shuttle hold?" someone asked.



  "It's a old E-9 Explorer, eight, four crew, four passengers." Joamer said. "We have, what, two pilots with us."



The squad leader looked up as Joamer said that, and saw him looking at one of the X-wings. Just then the containment field came back online. Energy rounds began shooting overhead as the Golan crew got into position and began firing again.



"Joamer you fly the shuttle, I'll take the X-wing." Darr said as he fired a few shots then ducked back to reload.


"Sir, I'm the new kid. I'm the expendable one. I should be the one to attempt it." He said as he downed two men who had tried to run into the hangar.

  "Got it!" someone shouted, just as the secondary blastdoors closed, effectively blocking them off from the rest of the station. Everyone began checking weapons during the brief break.



  "Evi needs a med bay very soon, sir." Nams said into the silence.



  "It's your choice,sir." Joamer said as he eyed the shuttle and the X-wings again.

There was no more fooling around as the squad made their way to the reactor. They were mad as hell that Evi had lost his arm and while there was virtually no more enemies left to butcher anything in their way will pay the price. This was easily demonstrated when a table was knocked over by a running Rogueboy who in a slight fit of anger found the four legged object mocking him.

The squad easily reached the reactor room following the signs that were posted up in the halls. Ironically it was the thought of helping a new recruit find his way around the Golan that was now aiding the Raiders into its destruction.

The view was rather disturbing as the squad turned the corner and saw the bodies of engineers floating around. Every once in a while one of them would get zapped by the reactor as they slid towards it. The reactor would split the body in half and unleash a huge amount of blood that would float around the room.

Rogueboy heard someone gag but he had seen worse, has held worse, and knew that things were only going to get worse before they got better. Marka quickly placed the remote charges in a circle around the reactor.

"If that doesn't knock it out of its cradle, nothing will." The Engineer said.

This alerted Darr. "What are the possibilities of that?" The now worried squad leader asked.

Marka was thoughtful and it was the first time Rogue had ever seen the trooper really think about a situation. "Perhaps one in a thousand." The trooper said after a few seconds of thinking.

"I'd bet on it." Rogue said in an attempt to relay Darr's fears.

"You'd bet on a womp rat versus a rancor." Darr responded.

"Only if the paying odds are more then five hundred to one." Rogue said cheerfully.

Darr laughed. "Let's head to the ship and get the hell out of here."

The squad headed towards the ship, when they arrived they boarded and as the Golan disappeared from the viewports an alarm sounded in the transport ship. There was a fleet exiting hyperspace, at the same time Marka pressed the detonator and the Golan II platform erupted in a huge flame and shrapnel like particles.

Darr hit the hyperspace and the ship left the system in a path that would take them back to Tadath, and home.