Fury’s assistant directed Merrick into the Prefect’s office, which was quite obviously empty. Merrick checked her chrono as the assistant shrugged and left. She took the seat opposite the one normally occupied by Fury and waited. It was strange for him to be late for a meeting, he usually just got them cancelled if something came up. Eventually the door to the office opened again and Fury entered, making no apology as he sat behind his desk. His face impossible to read, he handed Merrick a datapad and turned his back to her as she read. She read it twice, just to be sure that it said what she thought it did. Her eventual burst of laughter caused Fury to turn back to look at her.

“Surprisingly enough,” he said through a poorly concealed grin of his own, “it’s not a joke. I was late because I was checking all of this out, and it appears that they have indeed kidnapped... someone. Their belief that she’s any relation to me is the only error there.” Leaning back in his chair, he folded his arms across his chest and sighed. “I think we’re going to have to check it out, just in case.”

Merrick raised an eyebrow. “In case of what, exactly?”

Fury shrugged slightly. “They obviously think they can get something out of me – or the army – so we should probably er... discourage them, just to be on the safe side.”

Laughing quietly, Merrick shook her head. “I’m guessing, since you’re telling me, that you intend for Jester to do this job.”

Fury nodded. “Good idea, I hadn’t thought of that. We do need something to keep your rowdy friends busy. The others are getting a bit tired of that Remluf fellow in particular. You’ll be acting squad leader, since Kami decided to retire?” It wasn’t really a question, so she simply nodded as Fury handed her another datapad. “Everything we know about this is there. Closest I could come to a fix on the signal was an uninhabited area of Beheboth, still a pretty big area to search.”

She browsed the information quickly. “No mention of expected numbers of enemies. Sounds like fun. When do you want us to leave?”

He scratched his chin for a moment. “Three or four hours I’d say. That should give you time to get them briefed and on a ship.”

Merrick sighed. “Nice leisurely departure then. Anything else?”

Fury shook his head. “Since we have no idea what to expect, I’ll let you decide what equipment you need to take. Just don’t get anyone killed over some girl we don’t even know.”

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

The troopers that made up Jester squad were in various states of drunkenness and general disarray. Few of them had trained at all since their return from the previous mission, preferring to drink, gamble and otherwise enjoy themselves. Merrick had let them due to the difficulty of the mission and the large number of them that had received wounds. She projected the ransom demand onto the screen, eventually getting the attention of everyone in the room.

“I know what you’re thinking and no, Fury does not have any children. He does, however, want us to check this out. If they think they can get something out of Fury or the Army, maybe they have the potential to become a threat later on.” She switched to the planetary information for Beheboth. “This is the lovely planet we get to visit. Desert, desert and revenge of the desert.” Scattered laughter. She shifted the projection and zoomed in. “This is the area we have to search. We couldn’t get a better lock on the origin of the transmission, so we have to rely on scans and even a search on foot when we get closer to and on the ground.” This time her comments were met with groans and varied complaints. Hashi was slightly heartened by the announcement that they could take along heavy weapons. “Ok, you’ve got two hours to get yourselves organised and to the shuttle. The demand gives us a very small timeframe to get to the planet, find the goons and ‘deliver’ the ransom.” Merrick raised an eyebrow as Remluf’s hand shot up. “Yes Private?”

“That means kill them, right?” Remluf frowned as the other troopers laughed, Merrick with them.

“Yes Private, that means kill them. Dismissed.”

As usual, most of the squad arrived with little time to spare before departure. They had all packed much more equipment than the previous mission, owing to the fact that they had no idea what to expect. Hashi in particular appeared to have Remluf carrying a bag or two as well as his own gear. Merrick merely shook her head and ushered them all on to the shuttle. Hashi almost immediately started an argument with Remluf as the latter dumped a heavy looking bag with little regard for its contents at Hashi's feet. Merrick could just imagine what the bag held - various types of grenades and other explosives - and winced as she imagined the flaming wreckage of the shuttle hitting the hangar they were leaving. It was going to be a long trip.

-------

Most of the squad had slept for as much of the flight as they could manage, probably because half of them were still just getting to the stage where the hangover kicked in. Everyone woke when the pilot announced their arrival in high orbit of Beheboth. Merrick double checked the area they were to search as the shuttle began to descend toward the planet. "We have a huge area to search, hopefully as we get closer we'll be able to scan for anyone down there. If that fails, it's on foot. I expect that they will be in caves or an underground structure of some sort, judging from how hard it was to pinpoint their transmission originally. We've got about 60 hours to find them and figure out who they have and what they want. Let's kill this mission as soon as we can, and you lot can get back to boozing it up." The Jesters laughed and did some last checks and changes to their equipment. Hashi struggled with the decision on how many of each type of grenade to take, and Merrick saw a few get passed to Remluf. She took Hashi aside. "Are you sure that is such a good idea?"

Hashi tried to look innocent. "If what's a good idea?"

Merrick sighed. "If he gets killed, I'll tell Fury it was your fault."

Hashi sulked and looked back at Remluf. "He's just carrying them for me, I'll do the actual exploding of things."

She shook her head and left it at that, collected her own gear and strapped into her seat to prepare for landing.

-------

They exited the shuttle to blistering heat and a disgustingly bright sun. The shuttle's instruments hadn't been able to detect any life in their target area, news that was not well received by the squad. Their armour protected them from the elements somewhat, but it didn't make searching a large area of desert any more fun.

“Its days like these that make you appreciate bad taxi drivers,” Hashi muttered, not even bothering to wipe his glistening forehead covered in sweat. Up above the sun was giving them a beating with its temperature.  On the far horizon, the heatwaves rolled across eachother like a coiling snake, and Merrick had to keep Remluf at bay more than once for attempting to jump at the oasis’s he saw, caused by mirages of heat on the dessert sand.
“Toughen up guys, we’re almost there,” Merrick muttered as she passed her back-pack to Remluf who seemed unfazed by the heat or increasing weight on his back. At this moment, his focus was at soothing the rock in his hand. It was upset, about the heat.

Vasili on the other hand, was cursing the day the Imperial Recruits ever set foot on his planet.
“I mean, think about it…if it wasn’t for them…I could’ve bin lounging with a hot babe somewhere in my house,” he muttered sadly.
“You mean, your parents’ house, right?”
Aeos grinned impishly as she ducked the rock speeding her way.

It was a few hours of hard walking that finally paid off as Merrick ran her knuckles over the sun-baked seat of the speeder.
“It’s not even a nice speeder,” Vasili muttered while looking at the vehicle in disgust.
“These guys are small time, and quite new at the whole criminal thing, I guess,” Aeos muttered, her eyes catching the soft boot prints trailing in the sand.
“Keep moving, the taverns, caves or whatever they might use must be near. Keep your ears and eyes open, this is too easy,” Merrick muttered, her emerald eyes narrowing in suspicion.

Jinx chuckled to himself quietly at the jokes.  Not really sure whether to laugh out loud or keep quiet yet.  This was his first time with the squad and already had a feeling they were different then the others.  This squad had a feeling of trust without the need for the squad leader constantly babying them step by step.

Jinx knew that he would have to earn that, especially in this squad.  He stepped forward, "I'll take the left side and search for any secondary entrances."  he paused for any kind of reply but only received a nod from Phenix.  "I'll go to, might as well see if we can find something."

Both men had their rifles at the ready, steps were slow at first.  The rocks formed a rather completely solid wall, although with a few cracks here and there, but nothing more then a large lizard could squeeze through.

"Hmm, what's that up top, the rock looks like it levels off there" Phenix pointed out.  Jinx took several steps away from the rock wall to see the top.  "It does level out, and I might be able to get up there to see what's on top" Jinx replied.  He handed his rifle to Phenix and began to climb up.  It was a lot easier then Jinx first thought it would be.

"The top is pretty flat, and there's a gap in between the rocks up here.  Inform the others and we'll see what we can find" Jinx said leaning over the side to Phenix.  Phenix tossed up Jinx's rifle and ran to get the others.

He was looking into the large gap between the rocks when he heard the footsteps approaching, he grabbed his rifle and squatted down.  "Jinx, we have orders to proceed" came Phenix's voice.  He could hear the others talking and who he thought might be Vasili saying something about the Col. telling them to get their asses in gear once again.  But then he heard a remark and several men laughing.

"So Jinxy boy, Phenix here said you found a way for us to climb in" Hashi said.  Jinx smiled at the name and replied, "looks like the gap will be large enough to fit us all one at a time, I can't be totally sure but it looks like it should get us inside to where the colonel and senior sergeant are."

"Well go on in, we're coming up.  Yell if you get stuck" Hashi said.  Jinx laughed along with the others, and began to climb into the gap and quickly found himself on the ground with a rather loud thump.  "Wow, that was fun" he said to himself sarcastically.

He looked back up at the gap and said, "ways clear, come on in."  Of coarse he "forgot" to tell them about the quick drop to the floor but instead moved a few steps back and waited till they came down one by one then said "oh and watch the fall" with a smile on his face.

The others dusted themselves off and Hashi said something about strapping one of those damn grenades to Jinx and they all laughed until Vasili put his hand up for silence.  Then they all raised their weapons in anticipation as the noise had turned into voices and was approaching.

Jinx didn't like this, hearing the voices but not being able to see where they where coming from.  That usually meant the you were either going to step out unaware or have someone walk up on you without you knowing it.  And both situations where not on the "that sounds like a great idea" list for today.

The two of them waited briefly before leaning their heads back from the openness of the area.  Jinx shrugged his shoulders in a silent "what do we do know" motion, not really sure how to proceed.  Aeos raised her hand and motioned for him to move out as she would provide cover.

Jinx moved slowly, letting his ears do most of the work, listening for the voices and hoping that he would not hear corresponding footsteps.  The generator was making it rather difficult to hear anything else.  After only a few steps he noticed that there was another hallway into the cavern area.

It was lit by small lights along the top side of the wall.  There was nobody down the hall but Jinx wasn't sure how long that would last.  He quickly scanned the room and noticed no other entrances, he raised his hand and motioned to Aeos that the room was clear.

Jinx reacted to her "orders".  He quickly moved back along the wall to the entrance they had used to get to their current location.  He clicked his comunit, "this is Jinx, Aeos is in trouble.  I need everyone here as fast as possible" he whispered the message.  Jinx squatted down and peered his head around the corner in hope that he would be able to see or at least hear what was going on.

The voices from the room where of two men almost yelling orders and questions out.  They where trying to figure out why Aeos was there and where the rest of the group was but she wasn't cooperating at all.  Jinx smiled as the voices grew louder, "man is she making them mad" he chuckled to himself.

He withdrew himself back along the wall as he heard footsteps coming from behind him.  He readied his weapon but quickly realized that it was the rest of the squad.  Before any of them could blurt out questions Jinx informed them of the situation and the personnel count as best as he knew.

The squad moved very quickly, Jinx was in follow orders mode and did as he was told.  Vasili and Remluf secured the second tunnel entrance, Haishi, Jinx and Merrick were up against the outside wall of the room.  Merrick raised here hand and gave a quick count down.