Application
Name: Elthra Zhen'gar
Age: Twenty-nine
Gender: Female
Allegiance: Alliance
Rank: Captain, Alliance Core Fleet 3rd Detached Logistics Company
Appearance:
Personality: Elthra is torn between her innate desires to leap free and wild into the world and the duty and responsibility expected of her by both her family and the Alliance military. She is well aware of the honour of her position, the shame which it carries and the duty she has to both her family and her home, but at the same time she wants nothing more than to be free from the war and the fighting and to simply travel the stars and seek out Zonama Sekot, which she believes is calling out to her to return the strays of the Vong race to their true home once and for all.
Elthra is as devout a Vong as can be found outside of the Unknown Regions, though she worships each and every god in their turn instead of the traditional singular fixation. This semi-traditionalism is typical for her religious beliefs - she offers sacrifices from herself and not others, considers her pain to be a gift to the gods instead of the singular state of being needed to revere them and, of course, is willing and eager to work with regular technology in addition the the sacred biotechnology which she shapes and utilises with a reverence that surpasses mere emotional bonds.
Her devotion extends beyond merely her gods. Elthra has nurtured a deep devotion to her close family, the Vong species in general and the Alliance overall - though the latter is by far the weakest of her bonds. She has long since been taught the insignificance of her life when compared to the goal, be that goal the Alliance's victory, the honour of the Vong race or even its reunification. When asked to put her life on the line for her goals, she has learned to step forwards without hesitation and accept whatever the universe has to offer her.
Overall, Elthra has learned to be flexible in her beliefs and her worldview: she will play devil's advocate with herself and those around her simply to force her mind out from familiar territory and has repeatedly shown herself willing to refute both doctrine and dogma when neither work for her. In many situations this is a strength, but often she will search for over-complex solutions where simple ones will work perfectly well and has learned all too often that the box exists for a reason. She is rarely deterred by these setbacks: whether that is a point in her favour or against her remains to be seen.
Force Sensitive: No
Skills: Elthra's skills can be divided into two main areas, technology and plans, and often the two complement each other. Her abilities with technology allow her to produce and modify both biotechnological and technological items, which allows her to change either her own capabilities or the environment around her in order to accommodate unconventional or merely unusual plans. These plans often involve the acquisition of new and interesting technology, allowing Elthra to further change her capabilities and so produce even more unconventional and unusual plans. The cycle feeds itself, and in doing so leaves those around her more and more perplexed.
Weaponry: Elthra's primary armament is the weapons of her own kind; amphistaffs, blorash jelly and bugs primarily, though she has been known to have the more invasive weapons implanted into her body upon occasion. This loadout is primarily for her own comfort, but it does provide the added advantage of being much harder to detect than conventional weaponry which Elthra has taken advantage of time and again. When conventional weapons are required, Elthra will often choose heavy blaster pistols, their light and close-ranged nature similar to most Vong weapons, or else longer-ranged blaster or sniper rifles to make up for the shortcomings of her traditional equipment. In addition to these, Elthra will often add non-sentient droids to her armoury to add both versatility and the option to interface with traditional technology.
Ship: The Soulward Spark, a Hajen-class Fleet Tender which has been refit to act as a mobile base of operations for a squadron of CF9 Crossfires and the 3rd Detached Logistics Company. In addition to these changes, the ship also possesses a somewhat sturdier shielding system than its base counterpart, though it remains entirely unarmed in and of itself. As well as the Soulward Spark, Elthra keeps a modified Coralskipper for combat or stealth-based recon and a YT-2400 for blending in with crowds and generally flying under the radar.
Biography: Elthra was born into a community of Redeemers - Vong who attempt to atone for the failure of the Ossus Project by offering up their first-born child to the Alliance. While this offer is officially turned down by the Alliance, no Redeemer has ever been turned away from service unless medically or mentally unfit for the role they have applied for, and no attempts have been made to discourage the indoctrination which the Redeemers engage in. So it was that Elthra was raised from her earliest age knowing that she was destined to become another cog in the vast machine which was the Alliance. When she turned sixteen, in the cooling embers of the latest Galactic Civil War, she joined the Alliance Navy.
Due to her intimate knowledge of Shaping and her training with regular technology, Elthra was assigned to to the Alliance Core Fleet Commando 9th Company as support for the first four years of her service. It was during these years that she went through combat for the first time and acquitted herself well, being caught in an ambush during the Ambresan Excision and being taken as an Alliance hostage during the Cylar III Crisis. It was the latter encounter which marked the end of her tenure as a mechanic, a result of the three dead Rodian mercenaries and fifteen rescued hostages.
Being inducted into the Alliance Core Fleet Commandos properly is a hazardous process, but Elthra managed to survive and even thrive in this environment. While she lacked the combat skills of many of her peers, her ability to shape the technology around her opened up options which other soldiers couldn't reach. She saw combat across dozens of worlds as planetary rebellions, petty insurrections, criminals and Coalition agents stirred up trouble which needed to be put down. From the asteroid-warrens of Karg-Narharn to the lowest levels of Coruscant, Elthra adapted to each and every environment she found herself in, and overcame every challenge she came across.
But the troubles didn't die down. In fact, they increased in intensity and frequency, and soon the Alliance's stance on its shadow war began to change. Increasingly innovative solutions were needed to stymie the proliferation of hot-spots and increasingly the Alliance Core Fleet Commandos proved insufficient to the task. This point was highlighted by the attempted bombings at Tsserss, where the Elthra was forced to blow the conspiracy open through a network of proxies and double-agents recruited in the aftermath of her team's slaughter. With mounting concern, the Alliance Navy authorised the formation of the Alliance Core Fleet 3rd Detached Logistics Company under the newly-promoted Captain Zhen'gar.
As opposed to being in-and-out teams, the Detached Logistics Companies were intended to provide a lingering presence, building links between the Alliance proper and Alliance-friendly factions of a local populace, waging an extended hearts-and-minds campaign as a preventative as well as deploying when the situations began to boil over. Operating out of a small network of transports and coordinating with local forces where heavy firepower was seriously needed, the Detached Logistics Companies represented an overall doctrinal shift away on the part of the Alliance Navy away from considering warfare as a series of engagements to be won and lost and towards a more objective-focused style of warfare.
It was a style of warfare which suited Elthra, and so she took to it like a duck to water. In the wake of the Chancellor's assassination, she was one of the first to respond to the newly-discovered threat and her inquiries stretched from the Hutt Cartels to the boardrooms of Kuat Drive Yards. She found nothing - no trail to follow, no path to find. As if the assassin had simply emerged fully-formed from the shadows and vanished directly back into them. It was something she had never experienced before, and she wasted months attempting to follow up on dead-end leads before finally dropping the investigation altogether as the unrest in the Alliance continued to swell.
With the growing unrest, the 3rd Detached Logistics Company found itself increasingly spread out, directing hundreds of operations across hundreds of planets. Recruitment from the local populace had been a long-standing policy of the Detached Logistics Companies, but the indigs were now starting to outnumber the Alliance Navy personnel, even without counting the affiliated, sponsored and unofficially-backed groups they had on payroll. Direction on the ground began to grow fuzzier and fuzzier as every single sophont was stretched to their maximum.
And then, as if to deliver the final blow to the overextended unit, the Alliance and Coalition announced their desires to undo the Carida Concordat and the 3rd Detached Logistics Company scrambled to prepare itself for what was to come...
Company: The Alliance Core Fleet 3rd Detached Logistics Company consists of 6 Hajen-class Fleet Tenders, each supporting a platoon of thrity-nine soldiers as well as twenty-six combat support staff. These resources are generally spread over multiple star systems, one squad to a planet, working to strengthen local forces and prevent and resolve dissatisfaction before it erupts into open hostility. At the same time, each platoon will continue to liaise with previously-established contacts to provide planning support for dozens of worlds, and often act as a point-of-contact between indigs and the Alliance Navy in general. As a result of this, the company sits like a spider in the middle of a vast web of favours and reliance, plucking on strings when needed to ensure that they and their allies have what they need when they need it.
RP Example: [spoiler=Here]CIC
The Melodious
Unnamed System #382932
Henalea bit back a curse as the wire discharged a spray of white-blue sparks into the air, leaping into her and making her drop it back to the floor. Reaching across herself she groped blindly for it, her hands closing around the rubber coating and pulling it back in front of her face. Arching her back slightly and craning her neck to get a better view of the port above her, she teased the wire in and then pushed it firmly, a soft click rewarding her efforts. Tugging gently on the wire to ensure that it was properly secured, she nodded in satisfaction and slid herself out from underneath the console, glancing around the CIC. As ever, it was in a state of constant, frenetic activity, with wires and components trailing throughout the room.
They'd started the endeavour of moving the command and communications equipment from the Bridge to a more protected location four months ago now and they were ninety-five percent done now. But the last five percent was proving to be by far the most difficult, with every step forward requiring a complete re-working of the entire system they were finishing off. Things hadn't been helped by the Empire breathing down their necks whenever they ventured anywhere near Imperial space, nor by the increasing difficulty her network of smugglers were running into for getting even the simplest parts.
"Clank, get under here!"
The buzz droid perked up at the sound of its name, scampering over the floor with a metallic ting-ting-ting to join Henalea next to the console. Swinging herself underenath it, the droid followed her, its cluster of red eyes watching her expectantly. Reaching into her breast pocket, she brought out a small pot and unscrewed the lid to reveal a small spatula on the other side. Dipping it into the translucent, viscous liquid inside, she smeared it carefully across portions of the panel above her before sliding back out from underneath the console before looking back to the sabotage droid.
"Go on, boy." She encouraged it. For a moment the crimson eyes seemed to hold confusion before they cleared and the droid raised its mouthparts to the metal of the panel. A moment later, the air was filled with the teeth-pulling screech of metal against metal, sparks illuminating the underside of the console as the droid got to work, slicing its slow way through the console. With that task underway Henalea turned back to the room at large, eyes roving over the men, woman and assorted others at work, slowly but steadily bring the room to life.
"Report on Vossport." A crisp, Core-World's accent spoke, and Henalea half-turned to see Lallella standing with a datapad held out for her. Taking the datapad, she glanced at it for a moment, eyes scanning for anything out of the ordinary before they returned to Lallella. The woman had been an Imperial Cadet not too long ago, and there was still that arrogant authority around her, but she had made great leaps since she'd come here. When she'd first started, she'd been disgusted that
she would be expected to work under and alien. Nowadays, she hardly seemed to notice.
"Thank you." Henalea nodded, "Any word from Salien?"
"Not yet." Lallella shrugged, "I imagine it'll take an hour or two. It's - what? - six in the morning over there? And this time of year, it's still going to be dark there."
"Did you learn that by heart?" Henalea asked, eyes narrowing.
"Of course not. I checked it beforehand." Lallella replied, "You always ask after Salien when we get the month-end."
For a moment the unspoken question hung in the air between them, before a sharp crack shattered the moment and several loud clangs followed, a mechanical wailing coming from Clank as it fell the few inches to the ground and skittered madly to its feet. Running back to Henalea, it leapt up onto her arm, claws sinking into the leather pads on her forearm as it chittered madly, evidently pleased with itself. Reaching up with her free arm, Henalea petted the droid for a moment, its mouthpieces grinding together happily in a mechanical purr before it leapt off again and waited patiently.
"Do you have to do that?" Lallella asked, exasperation entering her voice, "It's not natural."
"I do if I want them to stay cooperative." Henalea shrugged, her lekku shifting with the motion, "They're free droids. If they choose to, I can't stop them from jumping ship, and I'd rather keep their services."
For a moment, Lallella glowered at the buzz droid on the ground before she turned and headed for the turbolift. Clank whirred sadly as she left and Henalea reached down to brush its dome for a moment. The whirr died down for a moment, before rising into a mechanical squeal as the turbolift doors opened to reveal Issett holding a palette filled with steaming cups, along with R4, Crack and Halver. The four droids scampered away to cluster together in one corner of the room and began to converse with one another in the clicks, beeps and whirrs which made up their indecipherable language. Setting the palette down on the floor, he took a step back and glanced around the room, taking in the work going on around them.
"Very nice." He hissed, "I don't sssuppose it'll be completed any time sssoon, will it?"
"Of course not." Henalea grinned, "But it's functional. We still need to rewire the sub-space communications, but we're waiting for one of our leads to get back to us."
"You really think there'sss an Alliance ace there?" Issett asked, worry entering his voice, "Thisss could blow our intent-"
"Trust me." Henalea replied as she sat down and grabbed one of the cups of caf, "He's the one we want. I've been following that data-trail for a while now. Unless you think there's someone trying to keep an X-wing working for the amusement value."
There was more than that, of course. They'd stumbled onto the small cache of spare parts a few months ago, when stealing a set of hyperwave transceivers, but she'd spent a lot of time since then running teams over to Obroa-Skai and Corulag to start trawling through whatever data they could find - mainly in order to set up for her next transmission along the Shadowfeeds, but also partially to catch any more clues as to the identity of their x-wing collector. They'd thrown up the cargo ship's itinerary and offloading schedule, and from there it had simply been a case of going through order placements and archived security footage to find their man.
It had only been when they'd started taking a deeper look at their man that they started finding the interesting parts.
It started with small inconsistencies: a trading company which had gone broke a year before, a planet which didn't exist on any charts. As they'd delved deeper into the official story of this man's life, the connections started to appear: when they started looking into the unofficial story, the connections began to paint a picture. He'd been registered as working with the Derran Trading Guild: Henalea had worked with them for long enough in the good old days to know that they had been a front for the Rebel Alliance's smuggling operations. But after a while, the cargoes run suddenly changed to small, almost inconsequential runs. Going even further into those inventories revealed that those cargoes weren't real. And then there were the responses her sources had given when she'd showed them the blurry photos she could find...
And then there were the X-wing parts.
It wasn't a lot to go on. Not a lot at all. But the numbers added up well enough that she wanted to at least check it out.
"And you don't think it could be a trap?" Issett pushed, "Or a dessserter?"
"It could be." Henalea agreed, "But the odds are slim. And, besides, I have faith."
For a moment the two were silent, Henalea sipping on the caf and wincing as it scalded her tongue. A moment later, she sipped again.
"One of thesse daysss, you're going to tell usss what'sss happening in your mind." The Trandoshan said eventually, "You're certain that thisss is the correct path?"
"No." Henalea admitted, "But the data tells me it is, and my gut agrees."
There was another moment of silence between the two again, as she sipped at the caf again before continuing.
"You know, you can always-"
"Leave?" Issett asked, before giving his odd, chittering laugh, "No. Not yet, anyway."
"You realise you've paid me back a dozen times over by now?" Henalea asked, "No-one would hold it against you."
"I know." Issett nodded, "I want to sssee how this endsss."
"How this ends?"
"All of this." The Trandoshan gestured around the room, "When the Empire catchesss up with you,
I want to sssee what you do. I want to sssee how well you hurt them. I want to sssee how you essscape."
There was a final moment of silence before Henalea stood up, placing her caf on the side and glancing back to the scaly hulk next to her. For a moment, she opened her mouth to speak before a blur of yellow and black slammed into her, knocking her flat as Halver purred excitedly and ground his mouthpieces together, sparks showering for a moment before she reached up and scratched just above its sensor cluster. The purring deepened for a moment before the droid stepped daintily off of her chest and bounced to the floor with a metallic clang.
"One of these days, you're going to tell us what's happening in your mind." She smiled to Issett, before picking herself up and glancing over to the Trandoshan. As normal, Crack had taken up position on his shoulder, purring softly as the large, scaled fingers slid over the crack in its shell.
"One of these days." The Trandoshan nodded solemnly.
Any potential conversation was cut short by the central holo flashing for a moment as a vid-call request flashed up. Starting towards it for a moment, she quickly doubled back and grabbed the faceplate of her mask, slipping it on over her face. It took her a moment to adapt to the reduced field of view and the sudden darkness, before the translucent plate on the front got to working, displaying the face of a Human, then a Sullustan, then a Jawa, and the world around her came back into sharp focus. Dashing back over to the holotank, her hands found one of the buttons around the rim and depressed it. For a moment, the holo flickered before bringing up the image of a Human: if she'd backtraced the data correctly, he was their rebel.
It was time to find out.
"Romeo Farslider, correct?" She asked, "I have a smuggling job I'd like you to take up, if you're up for it."
Name: Elthra Zhen'gar
Age: Twenty-nine
Gender: Female
Allegiance: Alliance
Rank: Captain, Alliance Core Fleet 3rd Detached Logistics Company
Appearance:
Personality: Elthra is torn between her innate desires to leap free and wild into the world and the duty and responsibility expected of her by both her family and the Alliance military. She is well aware of the honour of her position, the shame which it carries and the duty she has to both her family and her home, but at the same time she wants nothing more than to be free from the war and the fighting and to simply travel the stars and seek out Zonama Sekot, which she believes is calling out to her to return the strays of the Vong race to their true home once and for all.
Elthra is as devout a Vong as can be found outside of the Unknown Regions, though she worships each and every god in their turn instead of the traditional singular fixation. This semi-traditionalism is typical for her religious beliefs - she offers sacrifices from herself and not others, considers her pain to be a gift to the gods instead of the singular state of being needed to revere them and, of course, is willing and eager to work with regular technology in addition the the sacred biotechnology which she shapes and utilises with a reverence that surpasses mere emotional bonds.
Her devotion extends beyond merely her gods. Elthra has nurtured a deep devotion to her close family, the Vong species in general and the Alliance overall - though the latter is by far the weakest of her bonds. She has long since been taught the insignificance of her life when compared to the goal, be that goal the Alliance's victory, the honour of the Vong race or even its reunification. When asked to put her life on the line for her goals, she has learned to step forwards without hesitation and accept whatever the universe has to offer her.
Overall, Elthra has learned to be flexible in her beliefs and her worldview: she will play devil's advocate with herself and those around her simply to force her mind out from familiar territory and has repeatedly shown herself willing to refute both doctrine and dogma when neither work for her. In many situations this is a strength, but often she will search for over-complex solutions where simple ones will work perfectly well and has learned all too often that the box exists for a reason. She is rarely deterred by these setbacks: whether that is a point in her favour or against her remains to be seen.
Force Sensitive: No
Skills: Elthra's skills can be divided into two main areas, technology and plans, and often the two complement each other. Her abilities with technology allow her to produce and modify both biotechnological and technological items, which allows her to change either her own capabilities or the environment around her in order to accommodate unconventional or merely unusual plans. These plans often involve the acquisition of new and interesting technology, allowing Elthra to further change her capabilities and so produce even more unconventional and unusual plans. The cycle feeds itself, and in doing so leaves those around her more and more perplexed.
Weaponry: Elthra's primary armament is the weapons of her own kind; amphistaffs, blorash jelly and bugs primarily, though she has been known to have the more invasive weapons implanted into her body upon occasion. This loadout is primarily for her own comfort, but it does provide the added advantage of being much harder to detect than conventional weaponry which Elthra has taken advantage of time and again. When conventional weapons are required, Elthra will often choose heavy blaster pistols, their light and close-ranged nature similar to most Vong weapons, or else longer-ranged blaster or sniper rifles to make up for the shortcomings of her traditional equipment. In addition to these, Elthra will often add non-sentient droids to her armoury to add both versatility and the option to interface with traditional technology.
Ship: The Soulward Spark, a Hajen-class Fleet Tender which has been refit to act as a mobile base of operations for a squadron of CF9 Crossfires and the 3rd Detached Logistics Company. In addition to these changes, the ship also possesses a somewhat sturdier shielding system than its base counterpart, though it remains entirely unarmed in and of itself. As well as the Soulward Spark, Elthra keeps a modified Coralskipper for combat or stealth-based recon and a YT-2400 for blending in with crowds and generally flying under the radar.
Biography: Elthra was born into a community of Redeemers - Vong who attempt to atone for the failure of the Ossus Project by offering up their first-born child to the Alliance. While this offer is officially turned down by the Alliance, no Redeemer has ever been turned away from service unless medically or mentally unfit for the role they have applied for, and no attempts have been made to discourage the indoctrination which the Redeemers engage in. So it was that Elthra was raised from her earliest age knowing that she was destined to become another cog in the vast machine which was the Alliance. When she turned sixteen, in the cooling embers of the latest Galactic Civil War, she joined the Alliance Navy.
Due to her intimate knowledge of Shaping and her training with regular technology, Elthra was assigned to to the Alliance Core Fleet Commando 9th Company as support for the first four years of her service. It was during these years that she went through combat for the first time and acquitted herself well, being caught in an ambush during the Ambresan Excision and being taken as an Alliance hostage during the Cylar III Crisis. It was the latter encounter which marked the end of her tenure as a mechanic, a result of the three dead Rodian mercenaries and fifteen rescued hostages.
Being inducted into the Alliance Core Fleet Commandos properly is a hazardous process, but Elthra managed to survive and even thrive in this environment. While she lacked the combat skills of many of her peers, her ability to shape the technology around her opened up options which other soldiers couldn't reach. She saw combat across dozens of worlds as planetary rebellions, petty insurrections, criminals and Coalition agents stirred up trouble which needed to be put down. From the asteroid-warrens of Karg-Narharn to the lowest levels of Coruscant, Elthra adapted to each and every environment she found herself in, and overcame every challenge she came across.
But the troubles didn't die down. In fact, they increased in intensity and frequency, and soon the Alliance's stance on its shadow war began to change. Increasingly innovative solutions were needed to stymie the proliferation of hot-spots and increasingly the Alliance Core Fleet Commandos proved insufficient to the task. This point was highlighted by the attempted bombings at Tsserss, where the Elthra was forced to blow the conspiracy open through a network of proxies and double-agents recruited in the aftermath of her team's slaughter. With mounting concern, the Alliance Navy authorised the formation of the Alliance Core Fleet 3rd Detached Logistics Company under the newly-promoted Captain Zhen'gar.
As opposed to being in-and-out teams, the Detached Logistics Companies were intended to provide a lingering presence, building links between the Alliance proper and Alliance-friendly factions of a local populace, waging an extended hearts-and-minds campaign as a preventative as well as deploying when the situations began to boil over. Operating out of a small network of transports and coordinating with local forces where heavy firepower was seriously needed, the Detached Logistics Companies represented an overall doctrinal shift away on the part of the Alliance Navy away from considering warfare as a series of engagements to be won and lost and towards a more objective-focused style of warfare.
It was a style of warfare which suited Elthra, and so she took to it like a duck to water. In the wake of the Chancellor's assassination, she was one of the first to respond to the newly-discovered threat and her inquiries stretched from the Hutt Cartels to the boardrooms of Kuat Drive Yards. She found nothing - no trail to follow, no path to find. As if the assassin had simply emerged fully-formed from the shadows and vanished directly back into them. It was something she had never experienced before, and she wasted months attempting to follow up on dead-end leads before finally dropping the investigation altogether as the unrest in the Alliance continued to swell.
With the growing unrest, the 3rd Detached Logistics Company found itself increasingly spread out, directing hundreds of operations across hundreds of planets. Recruitment from the local populace had been a long-standing policy of the Detached Logistics Companies, but the indigs were now starting to outnumber the Alliance Navy personnel, even without counting the affiliated, sponsored and unofficially-backed groups they had on payroll. Direction on the ground began to grow fuzzier and fuzzier as every single sophont was stretched to their maximum.
And then, as if to deliver the final blow to the overextended unit, the Alliance and Coalition announced their desires to undo the Carida Concordat and the 3rd Detached Logistics Company scrambled to prepare itself for what was to come...
Company: The Alliance Core Fleet 3rd Detached Logistics Company consists of 6 Hajen-class Fleet Tenders, each supporting a platoon of thrity-nine soldiers as well as twenty-six combat support staff. These resources are generally spread over multiple star systems, one squad to a planet, working to strengthen local forces and prevent and resolve dissatisfaction before it erupts into open hostility. At the same time, each platoon will continue to liaise with previously-established contacts to provide planning support for dozens of worlds, and often act as a point-of-contact between indigs and the Alliance Navy in general. As a result of this, the company sits like a spider in the middle of a vast web of favours and reliance, plucking on strings when needed to ensure that they and their allies have what they need when they need it.
RP Example: [spoiler=Here]CIC
The Melodious
Unnamed System #382932
Henalea bit back a curse as the wire discharged a spray of white-blue sparks into the air, leaping into her and making her drop it back to the floor. Reaching across herself she groped blindly for it, her hands closing around the rubber coating and pulling it back in front of her face. Arching her back slightly and craning her neck to get a better view of the port above her, she teased the wire in and then pushed it firmly, a soft click rewarding her efforts. Tugging gently on the wire to ensure that it was properly secured, she nodded in satisfaction and slid herself out from underneath the console, glancing around the CIC. As ever, it was in a state of constant, frenetic activity, with wires and components trailing throughout the room.
They'd started the endeavour of moving the command and communications equipment from the Bridge to a more protected location four months ago now and they were ninety-five percent done now. But the last five percent was proving to be by far the most difficult, with every step forward requiring a complete re-working of the entire system they were finishing off. Things hadn't been helped by the Empire breathing down their necks whenever they ventured anywhere near Imperial space, nor by the increasing difficulty her network of smugglers were running into for getting even the simplest parts.
"Clank, get under here!"
The buzz droid perked up at the sound of its name, scampering over the floor with a metallic ting-ting-ting to join Henalea next to the console. Swinging herself underenath it, the droid followed her, its cluster of red eyes watching her expectantly. Reaching into her breast pocket, she brought out a small pot and unscrewed the lid to reveal a small spatula on the other side. Dipping it into the translucent, viscous liquid inside, she smeared it carefully across portions of the panel above her before sliding back out from underneath the console before looking back to the sabotage droid.
"Go on, boy." She encouraged it. For a moment the crimson eyes seemed to hold confusion before they cleared and the droid raised its mouthparts to the metal of the panel. A moment later, the air was filled with the teeth-pulling screech of metal against metal, sparks illuminating the underside of the console as the droid got to work, slicing its slow way through the console. With that task underway Henalea turned back to the room at large, eyes roving over the men, woman and assorted others at work, slowly but steadily bring the room to life.
"Report on Vossport." A crisp, Core-World's accent spoke, and Henalea half-turned to see Lallella standing with a datapad held out for her. Taking the datapad, she glanced at it for a moment, eyes scanning for anything out of the ordinary before they returned to Lallella. The woman had been an Imperial Cadet not too long ago, and there was still that arrogant authority around her, but she had made great leaps since she'd come here. When she'd first started, she'd been disgusted that
she would be expected to work under and alien. Nowadays, she hardly seemed to notice.
"Thank you." Henalea nodded, "Any word from Salien?"
"Not yet." Lallella shrugged, "I imagine it'll take an hour or two. It's - what? - six in the morning over there? And this time of year, it's still going to be dark there."
"Did you learn that by heart?" Henalea asked, eyes narrowing.
"Of course not. I checked it beforehand." Lallella replied, "You always ask after Salien when we get the month-end."
For a moment the unspoken question hung in the air between them, before a sharp crack shattered the moment and several loud clangs followed, a mechanical wailing coming from Clank as it fell the few inches to the ground and skittered madly to its feet. Running back to Henalea, it leapt up onto her arm, claws sinking into the leather pads on her forearm as it chittered madly, evidently pleased with itself. Reaching up with her free arm, Henalea petted the droid for a moment, its mouthpieces grinding together happily in a mechanical purr before it leapt off again and waited patiently.
"Do you have to do that?" Lallella asked, exasperation entering her voice, "It's not natural."
"I do if I want them to stay cooperative." Henalea shrugged, her lekku shifting with the motion, "They're free droids. If they choose to, I can't stop them from jumping ship, and I'd rather keep their services."
For a moment, Lallella glowered at the buzz droid on the ground before she turned and headed for the turbolift. Clank whirred sadly as she left and Henalea reached down to brush its dome for a moment. The whirr died down for a moment, before rising into a mechanical squeal as the turbolift doors opened to reveal Issett holding a palette filled with steaming cups, along with R4, Crack and Halver. The four droids scampered away to cluster together in one corner of the room and began to converse with one another in the clicks, beeps and whirrs which made up their indecipherable language. Setting the palette down on the floor, he took a step back and glanced around the room, taking in the work going on around them.
"Very nice." He hissed, "I don't sssuppose it'll be completed any time sssoon, will it?"
"Of course not." Henalea grinned, "But it's functional. We still need to rewire the sub-space communications, but we're waiting for one of our leads to get back to us."
"You really think there'sss an Alliance ace there?" Issett asked, worry entering his voice, "Thisss could blow our intent-"
"Trust me." Henalea replied as she sat down and grabbed one of the cups of caf, "He's the one we want. I've been following that data-trail for a while now. Unless you think there's someone trying to keep an X-wing working for the amusement value."
There was more than that, of course. They'd stumbled onto the small cache of spare parts a few months ago, when stealing a set of hyperwave transceivers, but she'd spent a lot of time since then running teams over to Obroa-Skai and Corulag to start trawling through whatever data they could find - mainly in order to set up for her next transmission along the Shadowfeeds, but also partially to catch any more clues as to the identity of their x-wing collector. They'd thrown up the cargo ship's itinerary and offloading schedule, and from there it had simply been a case of going through order placements and archived security footage to find their man.
It had only been when they'd started taking a deeper look at their man that they started finding the interesting parts.
It started with small inconsistencies: a trading company which had gone broke a year before, a planet which didn't exist on any charts. As they'd delved deeper into the official story of this man's life, the connections started to appear: when they started looking into the unofficial story, the connections began to paint a picture. He'd been registered as working with the Derran Trading Guild: Henalea had worked with them for long enough in the good old days to know that they had been a front for the Rebel Alliance's smuggling operations. But after a while, the cargoes run suddenly changed to small, almost inconsequential runs. Going even further into those inventories revealed that those cargoes weren't real. And then there were the responses her sources had given when she'd showed them the blurry photos she could find...
And then there were the X-wing parts.
It wasn't a lot to go on. Not a lot at all. But the numbers added up well enough that she wanted to at least check it out.
"And you don't think it could be a trap?" Issett pushed, "Or a dessserter?"
"It could be." Henalea agreed, "But the odds are slim. And, besides, I have faith."
For a moment the two were silent, Henalea sipping on the caf and wincing as it scalded her tongue. A moment later, she sipped again.
"One of thesse daysss, you're going to tell usss what'sss happening in your mind." The Trandoshan said eventually, "You're certain that thisss is the correct path?"
"No." Henalea admitted, "But the data tells me it is, and my gut agrees."
There was another moment of silence between the two again, as she sipped at the caf again before continuing.
"You know, you can always-"
"Leave?" Issett asked, before giving his odd, chittering laugh, "No. Not yet, anyway."
"You realise you've paid me back a dozen times over by now?" Henalea asked, "No-one would hold it against you."
"I know." Issett nodded, "I want to sssee how this endsss."
"How this ends?"
"All of this." The Trandoshan gestured around the room, "When the Empire catchesss up with you,
I want to sssee what you do. I want to sssee how well you hurt them. I want to sssee how you essscape."
There was a final moment of silence before Henalea stood up, placing her caf on the side and glancing back to the scaly hulk next to her. For a moment, she opened her mouth to speak before a blur of yellow and black slammed into her, knocking her flat as Halver purred excitedly and ground his mouthpieces together, sparks showering for a moment before she reached up and scratched just above its sensor cluster. The purring deepened for a moment before the droid stepped daintily off of her chest and bounced to the floor with a metallic clang.
"One of these days, you're going to tell us what's happening in your mind." She smiled to Issett, before picking herself up and glancing over to the Trandoshan. As normal, Crack had taken up position on his shoulder, purring softly as the large, scaled fingers slid over the crack in its shell.
"One of these days." The Trandoshan nodded solemnly.
Any potential conversation was cut short by the central holo flashing for a moment as a vid-call request flashed up. Starting towards it for a moment, she quickly doubled back and grabbed the faceplate of her mask, slipping it on over her face. It took her a moment to adapt to the reduced field of view and the sudden darkness, before the translucent plate on the front got to working, displaying the face of a Human, then a Sullustan, then a Jawa, and the world around her came back into sharp focus. Dashing back over to the holotank, her hands found one of the buttons around the rim and depressed it. For a moment, the holo flickered before bringing up the image of a Human: if she'd backtraced the data correctly, he was their rebel.
It was time to find out.
"Romeo Farslider, correct?" She asked, "I have a smuggling job I'd like you to take up, if you're up for it."
