Operation Om-Freakin-Nom (The Underground - Completed)

[Ashin Varanin]

Aza'zoth hung on the edge of the galaxy like a boil waiting to be lanced. A nebula surrounded it, the evil kind that corroded hulls and drove crews mad. Of the few safe routes through the nebula, most were known only to Sith and Sith-like things. A few, thanks to old missions and old connections, had come into the hands of the Underground via Jorus Merrill, and the Underground had raided this world once, a good while back. With the Lords of the Fringe long gone, Aza'zoth was essentially undefended and de facto unclaimed, months of hazardous travel away from the nearest serious force projection capabilities.

This had not prevented Aza'zoth's use as a breeding ground for Sithspawn of various kinds. Careful probes of the Eye of Flame Nebula had marked the traffic that came and went, most of it unaffiliated but undoubtedly evil. Now, with a reasonable certainty of passing unnoticed, an Underground strike force breached the nebula over the planet Aza'zoth. The force comprised a smattering of agile, diverse freighters, a group of SAR/medevac ships, and a solid complement of RebelX gunships. The freighters' holds held orbital-insertion cargo containers, the kind you could buy anywhere but especially Silk. The containers, for their part, held sedated Balanoro Force mites in obscene quantities.

Once, the Dark Forge of Aza'zoth had been actually located on Aza'zoth, in a temple destroyed years ago by its owner Darth Hauntruss. The Forge was long gone, the temple was rubble, but the area was still believed to see use. Pilgrimage, sithspawn containment, lovely sunsets -- Sith had their motives, presumably.

At the helm of a Peregrine-class armed freighter, Alec Rekali squinted at a holofeed of the surface below. The display showed an area near the ruins. It looked like a vacation home, or possibly some kind of gothic sithspawn processing centre. Either way, as the Peregrine-class screamed down through the atmosphere of Aza'zoth, Alec prepared to drop several billion purpose-bred Force mites on the entire region.

MISSION OBJECTIVES:​

BOMB THE RUINS WITH LARGE QUANTITIES OF FORCE-EATING BUGS​

ENGAGE AND CRIPPLE ANY SHIPS ATTEMPTING TO ESCAPE OR INTERFERE​

CAREFULLY RESCUE AS MANY SITHSPAWN AS POSSIBLE​

I SAID CAREFULLY​

 

[Eun]

The Pariah II emerged from the shimmering whorl and into empty vacuum. All batteries came online, targeting computers searching for threats while the point-defense cannons spun up, ready to vaporize incoming missiles or enemy fighters.

Not that there were any.

Nothing tangible, at least. This business was a far more esoteric one from the view of a crew comprised mostly of non-force sensitives, which was why Kate made sure they knew they were getting compensated for their work. Piracy was no a cheap enterprise. Having 'principled' in front of pirate just added another three zeroes to her overhead.

"This is the Heralds of Chaos," said Shorn, "Here for fire support."

 

[Peyton Steele]

The Underground. She’d heard murmurs of them in her search for what happened, for what caused her to lose some years of her life. And so many memories. But Peyton never did find her answers, all she had found were more questions. Where had she gone? Who had taken her?

Why?

She had began working with the Pyre following the event, and then wandered off. Going between worlds until she found herself running across Coren Starchaser, a man who helped lead her a little, not by the hand, as that was apparently not the vagabond’s style, to pick up her memories, and to start fighting back against a galaxy that had gone every which way but sane. She had picked up a ship from [member="Noah Corek"] at one point, but now? Now she was back in a Z-95 Headhunter Trainer. Something that had an extended seating area that was modified to hold another person but was cleared to hold only the needed supplies for one person, and the rest was filled with gear to allow for a bit of wireless hacking and file replication.

She was a forger, after all.

But she was also a wanderer. The fighter carried two laser cannons on the wing tips, each wing held extended fuel cells and directly under the craft’s fuselage was a rapid fire ion cannon.

It didn’t matter quite yet, the ship was on the hangar floor of one [member="Alec Rekali"] ‘s Peregrine Freighter. The Mando woman was someone Peyton had worked with before, they melted a statue of a Hutt. And that was good enough for her to trust the other. Plus Commander Starchaser had said the Underground took a bit more of a… lively swing against their enemies.

“So… they’re going to eat… the Force?” Then what?

 

[Hira Mitsae]

[SIZE=10.6667px]Elijah did not really care about the Sith or the Republic or the Underground, or any other organization that was out their version of the [/SIZE][SIZE=10.6667px]good[/SIZE][SIZE=10.6667px] fight - from his perspective they were all full of shet, complicating things that were in reality fairly simple.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6667px]There wasn’t a good fight, no bad fight either.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6667px]Just a lot of fights that always ended with the little man fethed beyond belief.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6667px]So this Rekali picked the third option. Instead of being whored out to one cause or the other, he fought simply for the side that gave him the biggest paycheck, his only concern was the credits fueling in and his family being provided for. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6667px]Because that was all that mattered for him - Clan Rekali staying strong, whichever way the wind was blowing.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6667px]Him being here was an extension of that family business. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6667px]Eli hadn’t seen Alec for a long time, she seemed… [/SIZE][SIZE=10.6667px]older[/SIZE][SIZE=10.6667px] than he remembered, but that were memories and frequent traveling for you, seemed nice enough and competent. She asked him a couple of favors for the Underground in the past and didn’t just assume he would be doing ‘em for free - couple of good guns here, some armor there, ship components, the things that mattered.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6667px]“So why are we doing this again?” the metallic voice sounded through the external feed of his armor.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6667px]Sitting next to Alec gave him quite the view.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.6667px][member="Katya Shorn"] | [member="Peyton Steele"] | [member="Alec Rekali"][/SIZE]

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Katya Shorn"] [member="Peyton Steele"] [member="Elijah Rekali"]

"Acknowledged, Heralds. When the big rush comes, take your pick." Alec leaned away from the comm and glanced back at Elijah. She didn't have to look far. The bridge of a Peregrine-class didn't have a ton of room. Though the armed freighter was the size of a frigate, most of its hull was occupied by cargo/hangar space, plus the oversized engines that let it dance like a snubfighter.

"Once the bugs are dropped, they'll start weakening the place's Dark Side aura to the point where we can land without electronic glitches and emotional damage. As for why we're here, Unc-" She took her hand off the throttle for a moment and gestured at the sparks rising from Aza'zoth. "Sith just love shiny unique personal ships and shiny, unique personal weapons. We're looking to recoup our fuel and bug costs and still make a tidy profit, assuming we can snare enough of them." She touched the comms. "Rebs, you on that?"

The RebelX gunships accelerated, spitting ionic nastiness at the rising vessels. Other ships stood ready to sweep in with tractor beams and keep disabled craft from dropping like rocks.

 

[Peyton Steele]

Peyton would get out there and fly when the time came, but she wasn’t much of a fighter pilot. Really, she should be, but the girl was more of the martial variant, more than willing to melee an opponent or shoot them from range. Beyond that? She could shift, if she wanted to, and cause a lot of damage that way. And probably find things. Especially if there was a computer system involved. Tearing through one of them, or mimicking an object? Those were things this blonde was really good at.

And beating things up, as stated.

Planning? Not so much.

“Well, if they try to get away, I can always get my fighter out of the bay, we can start ion firing at anything that moves…” Of course, the RebelX Gunships went jumping in. This was a bit different than the tactics the Alliance was using, but here they were after credits, not only to stop the Sith.

[member="Katya Shorn"]
[member="Alec Rekali"]
[member="Elijah Rekali"]

 

[Eun]

"Mr. Koin?"

"Captain, some of the men... they don't like these pro bono missions."

"So naturally you accost me about it while I'm on the way to the head."

Koin snorted. "Y'know why I'm not gonna ask you in front of the whole crew. Bad form."

Kate crossed her arms. "We're getting paid. It's not a free lunch for the GAGs."

Galactica Alliance Goodies.

"True, but you also know that it barely covers our operating expenses. Not to mention any dents to the ol' girl we end up with when all's said and done."

Shorn's finger tapped against her arm for a brief moment. "I see your point, Mr. Koin. What are you suggesting?"

"Just urging me captain to do some thinking before the next job."

Kate eyed the older man, his weathered face half-covered in a gray-black beard. He'd been her first supporter when she took control of the Heralds, but he was a pirate. Just like all of them. Just like her. Underneath those gentle eyes was a hardness that glinted of avarice. They'd a thirst that needed slaking, as Koin might say. Her lips twitched upward.

"Uh huh. I'll think about it in the head. See that the bridge doesn't explode while I'm gone."

"Aye aye, miss."

 

[Jorus Merrill]

MANY MONTHS LATER

Aboard an Underground capital ship of Mon Calamari design, General Beyyr thumbed through the after-action reports from the Aza'zoth raid. No plan survives contact with the enemy, and the Aza'zoth operation had been no exception. What should have been a quick orbital mop-up had turned into a complex and prolonged situation. Though the Underground and its associates had escaped with quite a few expensive custom starships, ground defenses had been more powerful than expected, and the Balanor Force mite bombing had been interrupted before completion. The hit-and-fade operation had been unable to determine the effectiveness of the mites on a Dark Side site as entrenched as Aza'zoth. The mites had either been sent to laboratories or returned to Balanor.

Given the nature of the challenges that the Underground now faced, Beyyr considered it time to reevaluate options. As such, he'd just traveled to Balanor, near Silver Sanctum territory. Now his cruiser was receiving shipments of mites from the surface, and Beyyr was starting to feel distinctly ill at ease. But it couldn't be helped.

Shoving his anxieties aside, Beyyr turned to the data file.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

Very few people had heard of the Balanoro Force mite. Most of those people only knew that, in some limited sense, the mites subsisted off Force energy. The truth, however, was more interesting.

The Balanoro Force mite was a tiny, winged insect, native to the jungles of Balanor. It had two proboscises and many legs. Resistant to a variety of climate conditions, it preferred warm, wet areas. It did not require food or oxygen if latched onto a victim. It did not travel in swarms -- a quality that had made it difficult to capture en masse.

The mite fed on the Force, a true Forcivore. The mite's preferred prey was not known, though presumably some kind of Force-sensitive non-sentient creature was native to the jungles of Balanor. Such creatures were known to exist elsewhere; jakobeasts, for example. Sustained testing revealed that the mite could track a Force apprentice from thirty metres, and a Master from much farther.

When latching on, the mite used two proboscises, one to harvest blood and nutrients like any number of insectoid pests, and the other to harvest Force energy. This draining effect was not believed to be permanent. The report indicated that, once latched onto a victim, the mite would make its victim much more suggestible and agreeable, lacking common sense, almost as if drunk -- and would have difficulty calling on the Force. While attached, the mite was helpless. The file also indicated that the mite's effects would wear off proportional to the victim's Force abilities, a matter of hours -- around three hours for a Force apprentice, significantly longer for a Master.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

The report was strongly suggestive. It indicated that the Aza'zoth raid wouldn't have succeeded as intended, even if maximum mite saturation had been achieved over the target area. The mites would have latched onto the local Sithspawn and made them suggestible; the mites would not, however, have consumed the excess Dark Side energy at the site. A growl rose in Beyyr's throat. Captain Rekali hadn't done her homework.

On the plus side, as a side effect, the Underground now knew an awful lot about what not to do with Balanoro Force mites.

Beyyr rose and crossed the office, staring out the viewport of his ready room. Below, a line of shuttles -- going and coming -- connected the Mon Cal cruiser with the surface of Balanor.

What to fething do with these mites? he asked himself. The Underground had sunk serious gas money into procuring and containing and researching them. Sure, the Aza'zoth raid had paid for all that and more, but he would still need to explore some options. The Underground couldn't afford waste, or missteps. This had been the latter; it could still avoid being the former.