ITOD Home > PSG Tour A1 (TIE) > PSGTa123: Old Friends?

Battle 4, Mission 3: Old Friends?

All the crew was back and in place now, supplemented by Shock and numerous droids. They were still severely undermanned, and Castor had shifted the watch schedule around to accommodate it. Those departments in worst need were strongly suggested to use an overlapping six on, four off schedule. This would alternate having everyone at station for an hour, and then three quarters of a watch section for the next four, when the off section could sleep.
The scheduling to clean out the factory, the cargo transport, and the freighter of all personnel had been a nightmare. Although the job was made slightly easier by the experience of cleaning out the Widow of personnel and assassin droids, so they generally knew what to expect, it was made all the harder by the double set of duties the commandos had drawn. The Shocks never showed their exhaustion. And they hadn’t made any mistakes. They never complained, and the task had been accomplished. Announcements had been made that the vessels would be destroyed, and anyone left on board would probably not be rescued. A few last holdouts had surrendered.
Even tougher, though, was getting all those people aboard and incarcerated humanely.

---------

In taking all the factory’s reserve Avengers, it had been left mostly defenseless in the hopes that Spinel would be the victor of it’s battle with the Saguaro. When the Black Widow had returned, the factory personnel had assumed that Spinel, in fact, had won the day.
But how wrong they’d been. They’d been almost entirely unprepared to accept that the Black Widow was mounting an attack against them.
Almost.
That was when the tri-winged TIEs launched.
And they were the fastest starfighters Grey had to deal with yet.
Castor recalled the second notice of this sort he’d been given. It had read;

From: Med Command, Major Elyen Ototh
To: Grey Leader, Admiral Castor Efrata-Landis

Re: Recovered Greys, Flight 1 entire, Flight 2.1 and 2
Report: Grey’s recovered by Brier.
Triage personnel report following Greys D.O.A.:
Leif Nalpak. Cause: ruptured flightsuit, debris puncture
Trace. Cause: ruptured flightsuit, debris puncture
Fion Grell. Cause: ruptured flightsuit, debris puncture
Slyder McGrath. Cause:Internal bleeding, apparent contact with startfighter
Alta Darklighter. Cause: ruptured flightsuit, debris puncture
Tag Rendar. Cause: beheaded, apparently by debris contact

My sincerest regrets, Admiral.

Those services had been held, as well. Ten Greys dead. Over two thousand of my people gone in this campaign. I’ve lost the Aragorn, the D.H., the Bramble, the Thistledown, and dozens of starfighters. The only ship we have that we started out with is the Brier. We’ve lost more in one week than Grey ever did before combined. What the hell am I doing here?! Everything we’re doing is right. So why are we down so far? Who is this guy that he’s prepared for everything that we’ve tried?
Castor walked down the passageway, Lessa beside him, not reaching his shoulder in height, taking her bodyguard duty extremely seriously. There’d been a number of times when she’d become nearly a blur as she moved to investigate a questionable area ahead of him. There’d been a few times when she’d flushed out an assassin droid, and her image all but disappeared as she wove to it, depriving it of its weapons with her blades before it could get a solid target lock on a living being. Castor had known of her abilities, but he’d never really seen them up close and personal. Until now. And he was fairly impressed.
They’d finally returned to the bridge, and the Star Destroyer’s Command Room.
“Okay, Lessa.” Castor turned to his bodyguard. “You’re relieved of duty. Go get some sleep.”
“Yes, Sir.” She replied calmly, but remained at his side, her eyes darting into every shadowed corner of the room.
“Um... Lessa?” Castor called mildly.
“Yes, Sir?” She responded instantly.
“You’re relieved. Go get some sleep.”
“I believe you said that once already, sir.” She said, still searching with her eyes, and still not making any move to do anything different. “I hope you’re not into the habit of repeating your orders, sir.”
Castor lifted an eyebrow. “Well, I haven’t been, up until now.”
“Good.” Lessa said, with a slight hint of a smile. “Because it’s really distracting.”
Castor stood there just blinking for a few seconds, as if he were going to have to reboot out of a mental feedback loop. He sighed and sat at his new desk.

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

“Admiral,” the gotal paced in his frustration. “The conditions on this ship are absolutely deplorable!”
Castor tried very hard not to smile, knowing exactly what the problem was, and just where the conversation was going to go. He just didn’t know exactly how much the Barkeep was going to walk away with when he left Castor’s new office. “Tess, I know this ship doesn’t have a Bar and Grill. You know as well as I do that the Squadrons have much looser regulations where that is concerned than most military organizations, particularly the Empire.”
“But is there nothing that can be done?” Tesserak pleaded, clutching his fists tightly over his chest. “I provide an extremely valuable service which supports the general morale. The crew needs me now more than ever!”
“I understand that, Tess. But I’m not sure exactly how far we can reproduce your establishment on this Star Destroyer. This ship wasn’t exactly built with us in mind.” Castor explained.
“Sir, surely there is one suitable area, a single room or suite, of appropriate size that can be modified to satisfy this debilitating lack.” Tess was practically begging, his normal overacting overshadowed by his genuine concern.
“Of course there’s room, but we’re a little short on personnel right at the moment.” Castor reminded him, probably needlessly.
The gotal placed both of his hands, palms down, on the large black table at which Castor sat. As he leaned on it heavily, he said without all the usual drama to his voice, “Admiral, I’m the only being in your crew that doesn’t have a secondary skill. I am not doing anything, nor can I, to help get this ship into shape or alleviate any of the pressures on the crew. It would make me feel very useful to have the space allotted for a Bar and Grill, along with the responsibility of making the necessary modifications to bring it into existence. While the crew does in fact need the Bar and Grill to exist, without it I am only extra baggage and a constant waste of environmental service.”
Had Castor not agreed with the gotal to begin with, the seriousness of Tess’s expression would have changed his mind. Castor called, “Katie!”
“Yes, Admiral?” The droid looked up from the screen she’d been working at.
Without taking his gaze from the gotal’s eyes, Castor ordered. “Find a suitable area for a Bar and Grill. Tesserak will supply you with his specification requirements. Reserve that area for use and construction of a Bar and Grill, and give him complete access to the materials and information he needs to construct it.”
“Yes, sir,” the droid answered. “And quite frankly, might I add...”
“Thank you, Admiral,” Tess interrupted the droid, satisfied.
“Tess,” Castor said to the gotal. “I’m sure that you’ll be able to resurrect the Grill, but I don’t know what you’re going about the Bar.”
“Admiral, for all intents and purposes, I now have the place to put it. That is enough for this particular moment. That alone opens up a large number of possibilities.” He grinned and spread his hands wide at arms length to illustrate. “A wise old Jedi once said: Uncertain is the future. Difficult to see. Always in motion.” He continued, adding, “A wise old gotal once said: To move a mountain, the first shovel must be filled. In fact, I’m sure it was me that said that. I think it’s probably fortunate that I just thought of it.” He chuckled.
“Hmm... It probably is.” Castor agreed smiling. On second thought, knowing Tess, he’s got everything planned already, including having all the help he’ll need in getting it ready.
“I will notify you before we officially open for business, Admiral. You have my most humble gratitude.” Tess bowed deeply, and turned to speak quietly with Castor’s aide droid.

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

Castor sat with the Greys in their remodeled briefing room. “We’ve pretty much gotten everything that we could use from this depot. While we’re not sure where those few craft that left so quickly were ultimately going, we did acquire a dividend from this last operation. The tug that boarded the Pedipalp carried a tech from the station. Had he been on the station when we arrived, they would have been able to successfully hide his particular purpose from us. Since he was on the freighter, and installing certain data chips into the freighter’s navcomp, we know that we should be able to glean more destination points within Malachite’s sector from either the tech or his data chips. We are not in possession of that particular information yet, because those chips were destroyed when we disabled the freighter, but we have a number of duplicate sets of chips from the factory station. It’s only a small matter of time before we have someplace to go from here.”
“So.” Castor continued. “As it stands, we’ve gotten all the personnel off the depot craft. We’ll drop them off at the free-floater as soon as we can. Past that, all we have left to do here is to deprive Malachite of anything useful in this area. We’ve taken a lot from him already, but I don’t believe I’m ready to give him any breaks quite yet.” Castor said quietly.
“So we’re going to nickel and dime him to death?” Ace asked.
“To present a variation of a certain wise being’s theme; A mountain can be moved one shovelful at a time.” Castor could imagine the gotal’s grin if he’d been present.
“We’re going to nickel and dime him to death.” Juho stated with finality.
“Ah.” Castor hesitated. “Yes.” He agreed. “We’re basically going to do to Malachite the same thing that Greedo and Flame did to Y’ar. We’re going to cut his organization out from under him, piece by piece, until he makes a mistake or comes after us directly, or, as is my first choice, we find and destroy the Star Hammer project and permanently neutralize his threat. Now that Y’ar’s treachery has been nullified, they’re the ones playing catch up instead of us.”
“We don’t need everyone out this time, because it’s just a matter of killing the six depot craft and containers. By the time that’s done, we should have the information for our next destination. Your assignments are on your datapads. Questions?”
There were none.
“Nest high, my Greys.”

******************