TiCira D'Arr Hawk
Singing Mountain Clan
It's funny how such a tiny, insignificant, dozen-times-a-day action can become a line of demarcation.
The picking up of a comm. The pressing of a transmit button.
Before it had been pressed -- as far as I knew -- we had everything under control.
At that moment of pressing, my life split into two distinct epochs:
Before the transmission... and after.
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831 ABYO U T E R R I M T E R R I T O R I E S
K A L A M I T H S E C T O R
T O P R A W A

“It’s going to be light soon.” The statement was more than simple fact. Coming from the young Republic Private, whose right leg ended halfway down his thigh, the bloody stump capped with crude bandages that now reeked of gangrene, the words were a prophecy of doom. Bacta had long since been a rare commodity; over four hundred years of being unable to trade with Thyferra or have any connection to the outer-rim beyond the Core worlds had a nasty side effect of making the healing agent hard to come by.Don't even bring up Kolto; it had long since run dry at the peak of the outbreak, but even then, it was of no use. There had been no cure for the virus other than time.
“They’ll be coming.” uttered the Private, already well on his way to the afterlife. Like many of the others clustered around him, broken and beaten, he was beyond fear. He had spent most of the previous night taken with fever, whispering or crying for the wife he would never see again, the son he had never seen beyond the image of the hologram he held clutched to his lacerated chest. There were dozens more just like him crammed into the med-bay, waiting for morning. Waiting to die.
Outside, pillars of smoke rose in dark ominous clouds only to be broken by the hum of TIE -fighters streaking across the withering dawn. Down in the valley below, the forests gave a hellish glow has flames licking the once verdant majestic trees.
It had been as the whispered rumors had warned. The Sith Empire's pulse had not grown silent in the wake of the Gulag Virus outbreak. It had survived; no longer in it's former glory, but all too willing to expand and regain the dominion it once had.
From the rear of the medbay, a cloaked figure stood. He too, was worn with battle; bruised, bloodied, with a thin sheen of sweat, blood, and dirt sticking to his pallid visage. The lone saber hanging from his hip and his Force aura would dub him as a Jedi - one of the volunteers that had accepted the scouting mission down the Hydian Way; one of many sent to try and reconnect with the lost worlds.
"We must warn the Republic..... They'll be coming... "
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832 ABY
O U T E R R I M T E R R I T O R I E S
G R I C H O S E C T O R
H Y D I A N W A Y
Galactic Republic Expeditionary Mission Group
CR-40 Corellian Corvette
Aurora Tide
"It's here," there came the rushed exclamation inside of the briefing room from the Mirialan Jedi Knight Viara Tybolt. Hands went fumbling over the holo-array as she inserted the tiny datacube into the console's slot Within seconds, the complex computer projection came into view; a shimmering blue display full of facts, numbers, disappearances, reappearances, ship movements, things said, and things not said... but most importantly, it held the image of a large singular facility located within the asteroid belt of the remnants of Peragus II.
The Imperial Peragus Mining Facility.
Fact: Since the discovery of the Sith Empire still in existence within the bowels of the Outer Rim at the far end of the Hydian way, elements of Imperial forces have aggressively expanded their area of influence. Worlds that had suffered in isolation due to the Gulag virus and left undisturbed for centuries did not have the proper capabilities to amount a proper defensive strategy.
Fact: Communications with recently discovered isolated settlements along the Hydian way, Parlemian Trade Route, and from spacers that had managed to reach Galactic scouts told of a large force inching closer to the Gordian Reach. The tell tale wedge shaped cruisers had been spotted more than once; it was more than just mere spacer stories and tall tales. Such a large and quick rush of Imperial conquest required massive amount of resources that in their weakened state, meant that they had few key opportune reasources to draw upon.
Fact: An increase in scouting parties to the outer rim have bore fruit in detecting the movements of Imperial ships towards the Xappyh Sector. There, whispers of an Imperial Facility capable of providing fuel for said Imperial expanding projects were uncovered by way of intercepting young adults who had been raised in the facility. Enter Peragus II asteroid belt and the mining facility.
Fact: Due to it being relatively deep in Sith territory, intelligence analyst suggest that their defenses are minor compared to other Imperial fortifications that have thus far come across by Republic personnel.
Fact: Producing on average 30,000 metric tons of fuel per day, the facility had daily visits from Imperial freighters that brought food and water in exchange for the fuel. The fuel was then used in order to facilitate many Imperial projects on other worlds for quickly building infrastructure cheaply. Preliminary reports suggest that the loss of the facility would potentially set the Empire back trillions of credits and years of time.
...Giving precious time to allow the Galactic Republic to gather more support and resources from expeditions to outlaying worlds.
Silence descended. Slow, cold, heavy as snow. Pregnant. The small group of military officers and their Jedi expeditionary volunteer's gazes locked on one another. They had a manner of two options, as they were merely an expeditionary group. They could send back word to Galactic Headquarters, risking time and potential discovery and await orders from the various military councils and the new Republic Senate still in its delicate infancy.
Or they could act now. A small team could strike at the low security facility to infiltrate it, bringing it under Galactic Republic control. If they could simply manage to cut the Sith Empire from such a valuable resource, it could potentially give them a far more precious resource that came few and far between.
Time.
The choice they made then would have an effect that would resonate for years to come.