All Dante could see was white as the projectile impacted the landing platform, sending pieces of duracrete and durasteel flying in all directions. Slowly, he recovered his sight as his visor depolarized. Around him lay most of Razor Squad survivors. He saw the Razor ASL sprawled on a pile of duracrete, neck at an impossible angle and a metal rod protruding through his chest armour. He tried to speak, clawing at the air in agitation, but only red froth came out. As Dante watched, he stopped trying to communicate, shuddered, and was still. Dante slowly stood, using the fallen trooper's DC-15 as a crutch. The landing pad was in ruins, with fires burning everywhere. As Dante watched, a battered fuel tank burst into flames, sending pieces of durasteel everwhere.

If evac doesn't arrive soon, we're going to be burned to cinders.

Rogueboy got unsteadily to his feet, picking up his fallen helmet and replacing on his head.

"Status?"

"4 Razors KIA. Darr's unconscious, and the surviving Razor is in pretty bad shape. "

SL unconscious? Just when I was wondering if things could get any worse.

Then. Dante's comlink beeped again. Immediately he activated it and held it up to his ear.

"This is Vast Imperial LAATi B675. Any survivors please respond. Repeat, any survivors please respond."

Using his rifle's scope, Dante searched the skies and saw the distinctive shape of the Clone Wars-era gunship.

"This is ASL Rogueboy, Raiders Squad. We're on what's left of landing pad G-14. Request evac ASAP. Have several critically wounded troopers and our Squad Leader is unconscious. Be advised, there is a hostile tank just south of our current position."

"Roger that."

As Dante watched bolts of emerald energy lanced down from the skies, creating massive craters in the vast fields of ice. There was a  pillar of flame and smoke as the Thrawnist AT-TE armoured vehicle collapsed and started to burn. Around it , pieces of molten metal landed in the snow, sizzled, and disappeared.

The Razor Squad troopers are avenged.

The Vast Imperial gunship made a sharp turn and slowly came down, repulsorlifts keeping it in place.

Quickly, the medical personnel that had come with it helped the Raiders carry the wounded inside, trying to take them on board quickly while not making their wounds even worse.

As Sylix jumped onto the gunship, a bolt of red energy sizzled passed his angular head and impacted on the armour plating of the VE gunship. Dante turned around and saw that a group of Thrawnist troopers had finally managed to arrive.

Had they arrived five minutes earlier, it would have been a massacre. Instead, the gunship's left laser cannon turned their chests into slag and left them blackened and smoking corpses. The gunship's body pressurized and armour plates slid into place.

"Hold on tight!" the pilot yelled as he put the vessel in a tight turn.

In the gunship's rear, the critically wounded had been placed on bunks, IV's threading snake-like into their veins and bags of bacta dangling above them. As he turned, the IV's shook and drops of blood fell onto the spotless floor.

As the gunship gained altitude, Dante slumped to the floor, too tired to care about appearances. He closed his eyes and hoped the mission was over. The ship shuddered violently then leveled out as it passed into the upper atmosphere and headed for the VE Star Destroyer hanging in low orbit.

The LAATi made a perfect landing in the cavernous docking bay, passing through the magnetic shield. Teams of trained medical personnel stood there, waiting for their patients to arrive. Quickly and efficiently, they entered the gunship and carried the critically wounded troopers to the Pandora's main medical center.

Dante stood up, using the gunship's metal side as a support. He, along with the other troopers was escorted to a second, more secure, medical center, where he was ordered to take off his armour and was given a full scan. Then the med personnel took blood and body fluid samples, which set off alarm bells in Dante's head.

This isn't a standard checkup. There's something else going on and I suspect it has something to do with those hidden experiments that were going on in VE base. They were building a biological weapon. At least the vials were with Rogueboy, not Darr, when everything went FUBAR. If they had been shattered...

Dante was disturbed from his reverie by a doctor announcing they were free to go. He suited up and strode from the room without a backwards glance, holding his data pad in his left hand and DC-17 blaster rifle in his right.

---Several hours later---

Dante opened his eyes, instinctively grabbing his DC-15 before realizing that it was the beeping of his comlink that had awakened him. Setting his blaster aside, Dante grabbed the comlink, pressed the activation button, and heard Rogueboy speak.

"They want us to go back."

What in space?

"Meeting in eight minutes. Be prepared to leave in, at most, a day.

OOC: Sorry for the delay, I didn't have internet access for most of this morning.

“I’m sorry sir, that’s classified information.” The man responded to Rogue’s question.

Something was unusual with this ship; it did not feel like a SD the size was wrong and there were not as many personnel as a SD would require. Unfortunately Rogueboy did not see the ship when in the transport as he was focused on keeping an eye on Darr’s condition.

Rogue sat next to Dante and voiced his opinion. “This does not feel like a SD.”

Dante practically choked with laughter. “You didn’t see the ship coming in didn’t you? No this is not a SD it’s a Prowler.”

Rogue was puzzled. “A Prowler? Never heard of it before.”

“It’s a stealth ship favoured by rich smugglers and intelligence types. This is probably what we have here.” Dante replied good-naturedly.

“How come the enemy ships didn’t notice it on their scanners?” Rogue questioned.

“Scanner jammers and whatnot, this kind of ship has top notch stuff and I wouldn’t put it past it being able to force the scanners to read something it isn’t.”

The ASL shrugged his shoulders and stood up. “If we’re going to go into battle anytime soon I wanna be properly armed and armoured.” He went into to ask the man that was detailed to the squads needs to ask where the armoury is.

“Whatever you require I shall ask for someone to bring to you, what is it that you require?” The man answered.

The man did not tell them his name, the admiral did not introduce him by name, nor did the admiral give his name; they got it from the holo transmission. The man that was detailed to assist the squad was wearing the black uniform of an imperial captain but with no rank or medals pinned on.

“I would like a change of armour, an A280, and I need something if I get caught with my pants down reloading; surprise me on that one, my pistol was apparently not secured enough and it fell out somewhere.” Rogue said.

Within seconds the requested equipment was brought up and Rogueboy quickly changed but made sure to use the bathroom beforehand to prevent any embarrassment on the field.

The rest of the squad did likewise; changing damaged armour for fresh one and grabbing weapons that are more to their liking. The weapon that the man brought Rogue looked like a short barrelled rifle that had been cut, the man explained that when fired the bolts would spread out and wreck havoc in short range but would be impossible to be accurately used in a long range. It was a one handed weapon that had an incredible amount of kickback and Rogue immediately fell in love with it.

A few hours later

“The SD Fate has arrived we will begin our assault as soon as we can clear a path through Thrawn’s navy, no point risking our transports to enemy fire.”

OOC: Alright guys this is what is going down; we are on the Pandora which is a VEI ship protecting VEI’s private agenda, we will be transported to the surface once Thrawn air capability is decimated. The SD Fate which is a VE Star Destroyer will be landing troops to help us recapture the facility, if there are any questions post them in the squad topic and Darr or myself will answer them.

For the first time in her Army career Namyr felt like going awol and skipping out on this upcoming mission. She had gotten the message to meet at a certain place at a certain time, but the usual spark that she use to have when she was getting ready for a mission was gone. In fact Namyr hadn't felt anything in the longest time. She should have realized with the lack of ARC missions and the growing number of Eclipse squad missions that time with Riqimo was growing slimmer and slimmer. She slept in an empty bed, ate her meals alone, and spent evening after evening on her own. She felt like a recluse and she needed to escape as she began feeling what she use to be slowly slipping away leaving a shell of a Twi'lek that was good for nothing.

Namyr's datapad was held limply in her hands, the message had been sent, short and brief: "Riqimo, I love you, but the loneliness is changing me into something I don't like. Good-bye. P.S. Be nice to the cleaning droid." She felt hollow and should have been crying her eyes out, but tears had been shed so many times before and an odd floating feeling seemed to lift her heart a little. Now she had a mission briefing to go through, even though she knew her job during missions, stealth and melee weapons. She had proved herself over and over again as an essential to the squad, and as she walked into the briefing room she felt at ease as she slid into her chair.

From beside her Leon nudged her arm and Namyr grinned at him, he looked slightly taken aback but then smiled back, that is until Namyr pinches the skin between his thumb and forefinger. Sticking her tongue out playfully she half listened to the meeting. Since when did the men in her squad seem so, well, buff. Staring at Rogueboy for a few minutes she shook her head and was distracted as her datapad vibrated. It was a message from Riqimo: "I understand, we both felt this coming, I wish it could have ended better."

Namy chuckled to herself and put her datapad away and went back to half listening to the mission brief. The squad then headed out got equipped for the mission, Namyr cheeks burned as she occasionally glanced at Rogueboy. How would he react when he found out she was single, would anything change, they were still on the same squad and Darr would have kittens if they tired anything.

"What, is something wrong?" Rogueboy asked looking innocent and Namhyr looked away.

"Nah nothing, nothing at all," she replied with a grin.

Rogueboy was sitting in the briefing room watching the holo projection and taking notes; it was clearly a nerfshit assignment. Rogue looked at Nams more or less to keep himself preoccupied so that he didn’t fall asleep. For some reason Namyr looked better then she had for the past while a small grin was displayed on her features.

“What, is something wrong?” Rogue heard himself ask even before the words arrived in his head.

“Nah nothing, nothing at all.” She responded with her grin becoming ever wider.

The meeting was over and the squad were loafing around in one of the ship’s rooms; Rogueboy was staring outside one of the viewports with the macrobinoculars. For some unknown reason he was eager to get into battle the normally friendly soldier was in the mood to destroy something pretty. A message had arrived in his datapad and it had angered Rogue, it ashamed him and because it was something that he did he was angry with himself. The message was three words and Rogueboy knew they were true, funny how three words can cause such emotions.

Namyr approached Rogueboy from behind and slipped her hands over Rogue’s macrobinoculars. “Guess who?” She said in a playful tone.

“The little red one?” A smile creased Rogue’s features, only Namyr had that effect on him.

Nams playfully slapped Rogue on the head and pouted. “You racist, is that all you think of me as?”

Feeling as if he was struck by lightning Rogue did not know what to say and an awkward silence was starting to settle. “I was just joking Rogue.” Namyr said to break the silence.

Rogueboy fingered the handle of the sawn off shotgun, it’s been a long time since he had been in the company of a woman not in an officers uniform with the long hours at the office, it’s amazing how many things a squad needs in order to be able to do its job. All these requisition forms need to be signed, dated, and made sure that they had arrived. Every object from the helmet to the body glove everything needs paper work and all this work has led to a virtual annihilation of Rogue’s social life, his friends have understood this and had given him the space required .

“If we’re lucky we should be heading back to the facility at any moment.” Rogue said with a little cheerfulness in his tone.

“Lucky?” Namyr asked. “Since when were you one of the blood lusting psychos that we run into?”

Rogueboy did not respond, how could he respond? There was the truth, there was the lie, and ultimately there was silence. Rogue had decided to stick with the silence it would keep him honest, whereas the truth would only hurt.

“Rogue when we get back do you want to go for some drinks?” Namyr asked.

That’s when the assistant squad leader knew that Nams and Riq were on ice and that if he wanted he could be Nams rock. Rogue weighed the benefits and consequences of each; he had been there most every other time Nams had a problem with Riq and he had gotten virtually nothing out of it rather than a continued relationship. A relationship that Rogue had given up on, a relationship that had become a strain and an annoyance.

“I can’t Nams I’m busy, perhaps you should ask Leon I hear he is in desperate need of some R and R.” Rogueboy said