Hunt for the Warhound

[Ben Kenobi]

***Outer Rim Territories - R-6***
***Auril Sector, Adega System***
***Ossus - MC90 Heavy Cruiser Liberty***

*After “Fall of Tion”*


A ball of bright orange amber glistening among a sea of white, blue and ever distant red pinpricks. Ossus. Nearly destroyed by the Galactic Empire many years ago and now once more a thriving world bearing the scars of its persecution. After so long the only evidence of that attack so long ago are the memories the survivors carry and the impact crater in the far northern continent. Everywhere else the Force had brought growth back to Ossus and it was a bustling world once more. While her population was scarce, her life was brighter than ever.

Amid this bright amber gemstone hanging among the pearls. Sat a massive undertaking. There was no drydock here at Ossus but the world was being utilized by Task Force Liberty of the Independece Fleet as an anchor point. After the Battle of Rhen Var the MC90 Heavy Cruiser Liberty limped back to this location along with her surviving vessels within the Task Force and were currently undertaking emergency repairs to at a minimum stabilize their hull integrity and ensure their hyperdrives and shields were in working order. From there they would jump to Mon Calamari where they could be properly serviced and repaired. The beating the Sith Armada delivered was not kind and the entire Task Force was crippled.

Some of those ships were not present at the battle and so the Task Force was still operational but should an attack come soon, the entire sector if not the entire Northern Fringe of the Galactic Alliance was at risk. To counter this the Alliance Naval Command had dispatched Liberator Fleet which was currently en route though its arrival would take roughly a week, though the first elements were due to arrive today. In the meantime it was up to Task Force Liberty to hold the line.

In doing so the Starfighter Command was working overtime in issuing patrols throughout the area. Reconnaissance was key. But to cover the vastness of space in the surrounding area was impossible. There would be holes in which vast swathes would not be watched. Even the Jedi could not assist and reveal everything. But they could help.

With the enormity of the task ahead of them, recon patrols were being thinned down to single Flight Group elements of four ships as per Alliance Starfighter Command’s guidelines. Though the Jedi Coalition could be more flexible and a single Jedi could maneuver independently.

Jedi Master Ben Kenobi knelt in the front row, leaning on his old flight helmet which still bore the markings of his piloting days. Surrounding him in a semi-circle were other Jedi Knights and Padawans and even several Antarian Ranger pilots. There were a few others as well. He wore a simple flight suit, nothing special. It was more comfortable to wear the necessary gear when expecting to spend several hours… if not days… in the cockpit of a starfighter. His lightsaber was smartly clipped and maglocked to his bicep, out of the way. While his graying beard and his head hair was growing out to match the look of aged mystic, it was well trimmed and groomed. Green eyes framed a weathered smile and calm demeanor.

He listened to the briefing from an Alliance Naval Commander. The higher ranking officer was afforded to brief the volunteering Jedi, Rangers and any ‘extras’ as they had put it. Sectioning off area by area. Ben was selected to be flying through the Eastern edges of the Tion Cluster. Quickly the older man glanced towards another pilot who had been selected to fly with him. It seemed that Ben had found himself to be a wingman on his little adventure. He was fine with that and preferred the company.

Once the briefing was concluded he hefted his helmet into the crook of his elbow and approached the gentleman that he would be joining for this expedition. Bowing his head in greeting he raised back up and offered his hand in a more traditional sense. “Ben Kenobi, it is a pleasure to meet you…?” He paused, not knowing the name nor the rank of this individual and offering the fellow a chance to introduce himself…

[Salem Norongachi]

Somewhere in Deep Space

"Why."

It was simple, it was direct but as Salem Norongachi ran through the procedures to bring his Helix class Light Interceptor online and ready for flight, he found he couldn't quite answer Emah, the Imperial-I class Star Destroyer 'Hand of Fate' A.I. He'd heard about Tion through his channels in Division 31, the very quiet and very non-existent entity embedded still in the Galactic Alliance. It hadn't made for pleasant reading if you were rooting for the "good guys". Which he wasn't, he never had before and it bothered him that it, well, bothered him.

He suspected, while his gloved hands moved across the control board of his ship, that more than a little piece of the original inhabitant of his body had a role to play in this uneasiness. It felt like a parasitic conscience had finally started to show symptoms after all this time and in the most unusual way.

"I have my reasons," he lied, sort of.

"I'd like to know what they are before you go and get shot for a government you don't particularly care for."

He wished she'd leave it alone, just let him for once in his life charge into the unknown on gut instinct but she wouldn't. She would dog him all the way to Ossus, her nagging synthetic voice lingering like an earworm even when they went com silent. So he just opened his mouth and let whatever come out, come out.

"I don't want the good guys to win," the Helix thrummed as her engines came to life while he hesitated to figure out what he was trying to say. "But I don't want them to lose, either." he adjusted his position in the pilots, set his hands on the steering yoke and then brought the ship up and out into the black.

"Very enlightening. Have you been eating cheese before bed again? You know it makes you philosophical."

"That's the best I've got and that has never been proven conclusively. Norongachi out."

* * *

The mission briefing didn't take long, although it was decidedly longer than the time it took to get security clearance to land his ship and even less time before he was pointed in the proper direction where his particular skillset, whatever Zechs Merquise had cooked up for the official records, would be needed. As a pilot...

The irony wasn't lost on him. He had been flying under the Alliance banner with Aurek Squadron when the very same Merquise had turned him traitor. Now here he was, standing beside the diehard men and women he had callously left behind. A tingle in his senses told him there were Jedi here as well, which just added the cherry on top of that nostalgia cake.

A voice drew him out of that bygone era and he looked up into aged eyes in a colour not so disimilar from his own. Kenobi? The Kenobi? He'd never met the man, but he'd heard tales although never very flattering ones considering they came from the mouth of the then Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Tigon but the name carried weight and a hangnail of nerves niggled at him when as he shook the mans hand. There were few he felt worthy to judge him for his deeds.

"Salem Norongachi," his voice was level, calm, corporate veneer and training at its finest. "Just here to lend a hand." he'd regained control over himself and something akin to normality had returned to his thoughts and demeanor, in keeping with that he patted down the front of his A/KT Jumpsuit and was rewarded with a long forgotten cigarra dogend. "So, I heard you got your arse kicked."

[Zechs Merquise]

Briefings were… Complicated. Any plan set too firmly would crumble to the slightest resistance. Any plan too lose left far too much up to the individual. Desperation made most plans useless. A task force shaken to its core needed confidence and a lot of help.

The Liberty had looked better, but the scars would heal. The damage mended. The pain… The pain would remain. Revenge wouldn’t ease it. Vengeance wouldn’t cleanse it. Zechs knew all about both and how fruitless they were. Even as he sat through the briefing, he couldn’t help but think about all those other times lives had been lost for one planet or another. Such a waste.

Jedi. Rangers. Weirdos. There were plenty of them. It kept his lips tighter than it might have normally been. He never liked the idea of someone being able to read his mind. It made lying so much more difficult. The last thing he wanted anyone to think his confidence in this all going well was anything but absolute.

Zechs was nervous, and he was struggling not to show it.

The Sith were a force that excelled on the ground. Their star fleet was far from cutting edge like the Alliance’s. Even the few ships present at Rhen Var in theory should have been able to hold out, but he had reviewed teh action reports. They performed admirably and fought with distinction.

Dumb luck? A twist of fate? A moment of tactical brilliance? Call it what you willed. The result was the same. The Alliance had lost. Onward. Cautiously.

Zechs remained seated as the briefing came to a close. He rubbed the palms of his hands against the sides of his legs. He took slow careful breaths to steady himself. Acting was never something he had attempted, but then again half of bravery was acting like you weren’t afraid. They called that courage, so Zechs leaned on courage and hoped. Hoped for the best. Expected trouble.

[Ben Kenobi]

Perhaps some may have bristled at the remark. In fact a pair of passing Y-wing pilots, of whom had served in the skies that day overhead the comment and they both delivered sour looks on their faces as well as a stay in their routes. Turning to face Salem, to his back, the bigger of the two started approaching with full intent in his eyes. Ben’s freshly made acquaintance was about to get sucker punched… and rightly so. Many lives had been lost that day. The Alliance in particular had suffered greatly at the hands of the Sith and many of the bodies of the fallen would never be recovered as the enemy held the field. Good friends long gone that could never be properly honored… it rankled and stuck in one’s gut. It left a bitter taste and so fresh was that wound that men like these pilots were on a hair trigger.

The elder Jedi’s eyes moved to pass across Salem’s shoulder. He smiled once. A knowing smile. Ben had been a fighter pilot in the days of the Rebellion and had been present at the Battle of Endor. His wrap sheet was extensive in the days, weeks and months afterwards. Before his twenty first birth year Ben had seen more friends vanish than some would in their entire lifetime. He knew all too well the sting these bomber pilots felt and he may have even spotted the first jab into Salem’s nose himself had the comment not rolled off his shoulder already. In truth Ben was about to make a crack out of it himself.

But to see the pain in these men. It was real.

His eyes flashed back to Salem. Some said that Ben Kenobi had the knowledge and the power to calm a raging storm. To silence a charging stampede of reek with a glance. To give hope where there could never possibly be any. He did not personally carry these feelings as his level of hubris just was not that high. But he did have the power to stop this from escalating very rapidly.

He would do no such thing. The process of healing also involved getting your lip split open once or twice. But what he would not allow was for that bomber pilot to wrack Salem upside the head with that flight helmet he was swinging. Stepping in he shouldered past Norongachi and tossed a right cross that completely missed the burly man, but instead linked arms with him. The strike was terminated and momentum let the helmet sling clear of the pilot’s fist, it continued to sail towards Salem.

The bomber pilot being a much bigger man. Ben’s own forward motion was killed frighteningly fast and now he was open for an attack to his rear. It was the calming moment before the storm when the humidity rose in crescendos just moments ahead of a downpour.

It seemed that the next move was Salem’s…

[Salem Norongachi]

The tensions rose around him, he didn't need the Force to feel it. Years of living inside one gun sight or another had finely calibrated his instincts, he knew when the crosshairs had fallen on him and the tingle across his soul confirmed it but he didn't move. Instead he met Bens stare with a casual look and found a lighter in his myriad of pockets and pouches. The bump of their shoulders didn't seem to register when Kenobi stepped into the line of fire and took the high road.

Salem turned then, the whole scene trapped in the thick quagmire of heightened responses, and flicked his gaze to the cigarra which was half way to his mouth before he reconsidered, lowered it and looked into the glossy finish on the bomber pilots helmet. He could move, his reflexes hadn't dulled enough that catching it before impact was also out of the question but that quiet little voice that went so often unanswered found itself granted an audience. His head snapped back an inch, chin rising from the impact and blood cast into the air from his nose and lip. The helmet spun off to his right, the clatter of it across the deck filling the silence that followed and the crimson splatter across Salem's face was enough to halt the other pilot in his tracks, anything he had planned forgotten in the moment.

Salem put the cigarra between pinkish teeth, lit it and took a long drag.

"I had that coming." Norongachi said calmly before he set a thumb against one nostril and exhaled a glob of red onto the floor.

[Zechs Merquise]

A brawl in a briefing room. Nope. Zechs would have no part of this. Stress relief from a nightmare or not, nope. He slumped down in his chair like he had just finished watching a naughty movie in a room full of devout Jedi.

Nope. Zechs would have no part in this. Maybe next time they’d figure out a good crying helped. Or drinking off a defeat was far easier to get over than being pounded into trash. They didn’t need a pond or trash. They didn’t need drunks. They needed people who could get over themselves and do what needed to be done.

Zechs could do that. He was going to let everyone else do what they felt they needed to do. In fact, if it helped speed this entire situation up, he was willing to provide some slight encouragement, but it sounded like it was over as quick as it had started, except for some mopping up.

Good. They kind of had things to do.

[Ben Kenobi]

Just as things had escalated, just as fast they had died. It was over. Clattering to the ground and spinning aside the helmet came to a rest and that big burly bomber pilot probably just realized what he had done. Bright eyes flashed to Salem and back to the Jedi that caught him. Ben was wide open for a counter but the pilot hesitated and without any offensive action from the original target. The brawl died down and just went awkwardly quiet. That was until the Alliance Commander overseeing the briefing caught wind of the incident. The verbal barking came in a tirade of sharp language and both bomber pilots locking up in rigid attention.

Their fates being sealed to disciplinary action, Ben turned back to Salem and eyed the slight run of crimson coming from the younger man nose. “Can still fly with that I hope.” By the time Ben retreated from the scene the bomber pilots were still being chewed out. He exited the briefing room immediately if only to get away from the tense situation. Once in the corridor Ben set his own helmet in both hands as he briskly strode for the hangar. Without much else to really talk about Ben jumped in the turbolift and took it down to the hangar deck.

Mobilizing for a large starfighter operation, the hangar was a scene of orderly chaos. Towards the bay doors a Flight Group of RZ-1 A-wing Interceptors were launching. Taxing to the exit of the hangar on repulsorlift coils and guided by the deck crew. Their whining engines were practically drowned out by the spooling of closer starfighters that were going through pre-flight checks, fueling operations and last minute maintenance.

Small gatherings of pilots went over mission reviews and equipment checks. Droids scurried about on carious duties and the intercom called out. Ben arrived with his ship setting in front of him, two crewmen unhooked a hose from its fuselage and a Verpine tech approached to confirm to the Jedi pilot that his ship was ready to go. Nodding in thanks to the alien, the Jedi once more turned back to Salem. “Ready when you are Mr. Salem. I’m on your wing.” In that moment Ben noticed another pilot lurking nearby, recognizing him as being in the same briefing room as Salem and himself earlier, he acknowledged him.

“Is your route close to ours? Traveling in as a Flight Group would give us some safety in numbers out there.” He mentioned this to the glaring fact that once they got way out there, support would be minimal if not completely absent. He gave the reserved pilot a nod and a confident smile, “Ben Kenobi, at your service sir.”

[Zechs Merquise]

Zechs hadn’t stepped two feet onto the hanger deck before his little droid was buzzing and beeping about how it had run all its simulations, gone through the checklist, and made sure the cockpit’s air filters had been replaced. He didn’t even get to enjoy the other launches or be the third wheel in any of the fighter pilot clicks forming up. But his XJ was more than ready. He guessed that counted for something. He patted the little droid on its top. It bleeped in approval.

Caught entirely off guard like the exact opposite it as he should be given the lift offs and, well, everything, a fine gentleman startled him on the way to double check his droid’s “work.” His mind elsewhere walking through courses and what if’s. “Ah… Yes, sir. Sounds good. And a pleasure to meet you.” He extended a hand for one of those slightly awkward yet reassuring handshakes where your free hand grabs them by the forearm and shakes it as well. Nods were never enough. Not for a second did he think he forgot something.

[Salem Norongachi]

"Oh I've had worse," Norongachi replied and wiped the back of his hand across the trail of red on his lip while he followed Kenobi to the hangar deck. They stepped into the turbolift in silence, if there was any remaining animosity from Kenobi the Jedi Master hid it well, and they stood quietly as the floors zipped past beyond the doors. After a moment Salem put the cigarra stub to his lips again, tasted the metalic tang of blood and gave it a brief inspection. It was saturated by it, beyond hope of saving. He stuck it in his pocket anyway and then the doors opened.

Its easy to forget just how many personnel actually serve on a warship or just how vast their hangar bays can be until you see dozens of pilots, deckhands and droids tending to an equal number of fighters, bombers and interceptors. It was a hive, a rushed yet coordinated traffic of bodies and machines all working toward a singular purpose.

His Helix stood out like a sore thumb among the Alliance standard craft and Norongachi keyed a button on his armours wrist to get the boarding ramp descending as they approached. "B-Wing." He said with an appraising eye over the bomber. "Never flown one personally but I've seen their handiwork much closer than I'd have liked. Good to have you around, Ben." then, of course, he saw the other pilot.

"Well, well, fraking well." he addressed the man, currently shaking Kenobi's hand, or was it his forearm? It was hard to determine at the angle he was approaching. "Zechs Merquise, as I live and breathe. Get bored behind a desk old man?"

[Jacobi Wylcott]

---TION CLUSTER - S-5
---WARHOUND COMMAND


“Yes my Lord I can confirm that the first resupply ships will begin arriving within the next twenty-four to thirty hours now that Rhen Var is being more properly established as a staging area.” A datapad scrolled with information and the current Admiral of Warhound made his reports to the Dark Lord of the Sith - whom at this time was personally vested in the overall operation. “A returning patrol took contact near Raxus Prime though the events were isolated and as far as we can tell no scans were made. Opposing assets were local vessels and scrappers. Another patrol on its holding position - it took contact near Abraxin though this skirmish was of an old civilian freighter our forces engaged and disabled. We have a transport en route to board and seize it. From our initial scans Abraxin seems it may be a world isolated that can easily be converted to a world for our purposes. It is backwater, not much travel, low population, inhospitable environment.”

The briefing went on for some time. More reports of patrols either taking contact or not. Status reports of the Warhound and supporting vessels. Many other arraignments came and went as well. Tormentous did not like to listen to such minute details but this operation was hanging on the balance of a dagger’s edge and the scale of reward was great - it did him well to see that things went smoothly here. That along with his prior involvement with Rhen Var’s capture - it had not been a stretch to see him this far into the Tion Cluster.

With plans moving into fruition - the entirety of the Tion Cluster was at stake here. With the tendrils of the Crow and the Dragon looking deep into the finely poured glasses of the high browed societies - with the vines of corruption seeking purchase - with a Silver devil assassinating those of import - the Sith were hard at work here in the Tion and soon there would be much more to be seen.

For now the Hunter, the Dark Lord, the High Priest and the Yellow King were awaiting their own roles in this grand and far reaching scheme.