"I was right, you really are so cute together," the teasing voice of Arden wafted through Harry's sleep-addled mind. Immediately, he sat up, arms behind his back as additional support.
Unfortunately, that deprived the young woman who had been using him as a cushion of exactly that; with an indignant yowl, Leia planted face-first into the mattress. Shaking her head to clear the cobwebs, she raised herself on an elbow, only to immediately burrow back into the cushion, the beginnings of an impressive flush on her face and neck.
"Cute," Arden repeated wryly. "The whole base is in a flurry over where our dear Princess is, but I had a feeling…"
That got Leia's attention better than anything else could have. "How long have they been looking for me?" she inquired worriedly, still avoiding looking anyone in the eye.
"Around half an hour," the witch replied. "Dodonna wanted you there for the briefing on the Death Star schematics; you too, 'Boss'. Or do you prefer Captain, now?"
"Thanks Arden," 'Boss' replied, amusement breaking through the embarrassment. Not that what he and Leia had done was wrong (it felt way too good for it to be wrong), as a matter of fact, it had been totally innocent, but the unplanned nature of it all still left him reeling. Not to mention that Arden would never let him live it down.
"Mercer there already?" he asked, the Dathomirian witch nodding in response. "Alright. I'll freshen up and go to the command centre." Once again realising that he was a wizard, Harry took his staff in hand, applied a quick cleaning charm to himself and offered to do the same for Leia, who gladly accepted. It seemed she was reluctant to traverse the entire base, sleep-ruffled, after having been lost.
"Lead the way," the 'Boss' told Arden, who surprisingly shook her head.
"I wasn't invited. Mercer has inside information, you have special skills. There was no reason for them to include me and let more people know of what they are going to speak than was absolutely necessary," she explained. "Were I planning something important, I would do the same."
Still feeling somewhat unsettled about keeping information from people who trusted him to lead them, Harry followed Leia out of the ship and toward the lifts. All of the way, there was an uncomfortable, though not tense silence.
"Sorry I ambushed you like that," she finally said when they were in the isolated cart. "And just, you know… tearing up on you and then just falling asleep."
Harry smiled at her weakly. "It's alright," he soothed. "I'm not great with crying women, but I've survived worse. Also, I slept really well."
"Me too," Leia giggled, a flush already creeping back onto her face. "I wish you would stay."
Her obvious dejection at the thought of him leaving left the young man struck to the heart, and for just a moment, he pondered doing as she wished and become a fully-fledged member of the Rebellion.
"I'm sorry, Leia," he eventually said with deep sincerity. "I thought I had distanced myself from my former life but being around people again… it brought back a lot of memories. I'll work with the Rebels if they need me, even if it means sneaking onto the Death Star and blowing the whole thing to smithereens, but I can't be part of this right now. I have my crew to worry about, as well as you, and that is about as much worrying as I can manage right now."
The Princess of Alderaan accepted his reasoning with a sad nod. "Will you at least come and visit?"
Not waiting for him to answer, she stood on her tiptoes and pressed a light, fluttering kiss to Harry's lips.
"Because I'd really like to see you again, and soon."
"Well now I have to," Harry joked, although it lacked enthusiasm. "Ask me about it again in a year."
Leia distanced herself from him, a shimmer of hurt in her eyes. "Ask you about what?" she inquired, and by her tone alone he could tell that a lot was riding on the correct answer to this question.
"Not about visiting, of course," he assured. "About joining the Alliance. Only if my crew is on board, though."
OOOOOOOO
There was an impressive gathering of high officers of the Alliance awaiting the quiet pair in the briefing room. Both Dodonna and Willard were there, of course, but there were also two other men present, as well as the life-size holograms of a woman in a flowing white dress, a rugged-looking man with a moustache and greying hair, as well as a squid man.
"Princess, Captain Potter," Dodonna greeted them as they entered. "May I present Generals Willard, Vernan and Cracken, as well as former senators Garm Bel-Iblis and Mon Mothma, and finally former Admiral Gial Ackbar."
Harry bowed his head slightly in acknowledgement of the rank of all those assembled before him, before turning his attention onto Willard. "Congratulations on your promotion, General Willard."
While Leia did likewise, he turned his attention to the holographic presences in the room with them; he could sense a distinct hostility between the two former senators, although for the life of him, he could not figure out the cause for it. The squid man, Ackbar, simply seemed unassuming, barring the fact that he was a squid man.
"I appreciate the invitation," the former admiral said gruffly, "but I fail to see the reason for my invitation to such a high-profile meeting. I have resigned my Alliance commission to lead the forces of my people."
"All shall be revealed shortly," Mothma declared, once again drawing the dirty looks of Bel-Iblis.
"Deigning to inform us, Mon? Maybe power hasn't gotten to your head as much as I had feared," he snarked with a distinct accent Harry could not quite place.
"Please, Senators," Leia interjected soothingly. "Let us not besmirch those we have lost by falling apart at the seams at such crucial a time."
That brought them up short, and little surprise it was. Having the daughter of Bail Organa remind them of their losses, of which he himself was a recent and costly one, was bound to make an impact.
"Thank you, Princess," Dodonna said. "Admiral, you were asked to attend because of the danger we face, and because of the kind of that danger, as well as the opportunity that had been handed to us. General Vernan, would you do the honours?"
One of the other two men Harry had not known nodded importantly and stepped forward. "Due to Princess Leia and her new allies, we have in our hands the complete technical readouts of the Emperor's superweapon, the Death Star," he explained, and those that had not been previously informed of their acquisition drew sharp breaths. "Everyone here was invited either because they were involved in the retrieval of these plans, or because this weapon might become a danger to them."
"Senators." The general had begun pacing around the circular table that was now projecting a hugely zoomed out holo-image of the Death Star. "Two of the three signatory worlds to the Corellian Treaty remain, making them viable targets under Tarkin's doctrine of fear. I fear, due in part to our actions, Mon Calamari might be considered a target as well. Now, the weapon has two major, exploitable flaws: firstly, there is a thermal exhaust port that a very skilled snub-fighter pilot would be able to attack and hit with an ordinance-based weapon, triggering a reactor detonation. General Dodonna will return to that later."
Now standing at the far side of the hologram-projecting table, General Verna continued his presentation. "The other weakness lies in their weapon system itself. The superlaser relies on multiple finely calibrated tributary lasers. Should even one of them fail, the main beam will dissipate and backscatter, and if the focusing crystals of even one of the tributary means should be misaligned when they try to fire the weapon, the battle station will tear itself apart."
The gathered officers pondered the implications of what they had been told for a while, and eventually, it was Ackbar that spoke up first. "Do we know where it is?" he inquired, looking at the construct with trepidation. "And how often do they check the alignment of the focusing crystals?"
"My informants indicate that the Death Star is currently holding position in the Alderaan system," Cracken informed them. "As for the maintenance intervals on the main weapon, we have no information."
Seeing the inquisitive look of the Rebel officers, Mercer nodded his head apologetically. "I was stationed nowhere close to anything regarding the superlaser," he replied to the questing looks. "The entire station was separate from the gunners and maintenance crew for the main weapon. Anyone trying to infiltrate the work-crews would be shot before they can say 'I'm not a Rebel spy'."
"I expected as much," Cracken nodded. "Regardless, all my Infiltrators are either in the field or in deep cover, anyway, so any attempt at an infiltration would have to wait until some of them return from their missions. Generals Dodonna, you have prepared tactical options I believe?"
"Yes," the bearded officer agreed. "A massive attack employing capital ships, the resources for which we currently don't have, would be able to target the superlaser in such a way that it would again destroy the station. The only tactical approach we currently have would be to employ small, one-pilot fighters to deliver a payload directly to the exhaust port. Our psychological profile of Gouverneur Tarkin indicates the kind of arrogance that would almost certainly lead him to believe an attack like that to be inconsequential. Even one direct hit would be able to blow up the entire station."
"Now, wait a minute," Mercer interjected furiously. "You just want to blow up the whole thing without warning? There are families on there!"
"And what would those families do when our families, our planets were destroyed?" Bel-Iblis retorted. "They would cheer, that's what. Just because you saw the evil in this abomination does not mean others on it will."
After that, the whole meeting devolved into a debate on the ethics of destroying a military asset with what Bel-Iblis called 'deliberately placed human shields' aboard it; honestly, Harry tuned it out after a while, although the snippets he did consciously hear reminded him of an old quote about 'one death being a tragedy, a million deaths being a statistic'. Eventually it boiled down to the fact that, during any forced evacuation of the Death Star, the Empire would seize any hint of sentimentality on the side of the Rebellion and probably keep as many children and pregnant women on board; it sounded rather in-character, as far as the Emperor was concerned.
"Captain Potter, do you have anything to add?"
Being spoken to stirred him out of his musings and Harry looked at Dodonna wide-eyed.
"I believe everything has been said," he ventured, relief filling him when it seemed like the right thing to say.
"I believe you told us you can obscure yourself from optical localisation. Is that true?" the man continued to question. Harry nodded in return, already knowing where this might lead. "Would you be able to do the same to a starfighter?"
It was an idea that had crossed Harry's mind before. With how close it seemed starships came together during combat, the ability to remain visually undetectable would be a huge tactical boon. Not to mention how easy it would make sneaking up on that exhaust port.
"I believe it would be possible," he allowed, reluctantly. "I would have to take some time to think about it, and then a working ship to test on. My abilities often interfere with the technology of my home rather violently, so while the basic stuff I've done to my and my crew's blasters seems to work out just fine, I would not want to rely on anything I do in that regard without testing it first."
"We would be very thankful if you could do that," Dodonna replied, before adding, "And you will have all the resources you need."
"This is all purely academical right now," Bel-Iblis interjected at that. "I don't discount the worth of this, should it work, but for now, me must all bring up top as much as we can of our starfighters. Tell us about that other mission you were mentioning earlier, Cracken."
"Right you are," General Cracken replied, if a bit frostily; it seemed he did not like being spoken to in such a manner. "We have reliable intel on a lightly-guarded Imperial repair yard in the Keldooine system. Most of the local forces have been redistributed to participate in the failed offensive against Nar Shaddaa and the annexation of Sriluur, leaving only token forces behind on the shipping yard. Unfortunately, as I said before, my Infiltrators are unavailable to relieve them of those remaining ships. That's where Captain Potter and his crew would come in."
The floating representation of the Death Star was suddenly replaced by a much smaller installation, hovering at the middle of a measly flotilla of warships.
"In expectation of the damaged vessels from the Nar Shaddaa assault, the station is scheduled to receive a military convoy ship, filled to the brim with ship components, including shield generators and reactor parts," he pointed at the picture of a dagger-shaped craft. "Until it reaches the station, it will have an escort, but as soon as it docks, that escort will leave. I have a few special forces soldiers still available that are not highly trained enough to infiltrate the Death Star, but if we can get them and a few astromechs onto that station, just before we launch a diversionary attack with some of our frigates, we can take not only that shipment, but the two corvettes and the frigate that are scheduled to finish repairs shortly."
Harry considered the plan for a while and found that he quite liked it. "I assume you want us to sneak those soldiers onto the station?"
"That's what I had in mind," Cracken affirmed. "They lack the infiltration skills of my Infiltrators, but with your abilities, that could be circumvented. In return for your help, and aware as we are of the good you are willing to do with it, we would be willing to hand over the Raider-II-Class corvette Adjudicator to you, as well as modify it to your wishes. Now, I believe you've done an admirable job of impersonating an ISB officer before?"
OOOOOOOO
Harry was back in one of the rather uncomfortable uniforms worn by all of the Imperial officers; it was cut in a way that made him stand almost uncomfortably straight, and the white uniform top's association with an organisation as vile as the ISB rankled him deeply. Still, he managed to feel better by reminding himself that he would soon be able to change out of the garment.
"Boss, we're being hailed," Mercer interrupted his thoughts. The Imperial deserter, himself wearing one of the white ISB uniforms, was at the helm of the Lambda-class shuttle the Rebels had given them for their covert approach. He, along with Arden and Harry himself had been altered in their appearance by some human transfiguration, making them look older, among other things; the same could not be said about Corsek and Javoc, yet given their disguise as stormtroopers, including helmets covering their entire faces, there was not exactly a problem.
"Reply to the hail. Let's hope the security codes are accurate," Harry ordered, looking worriedly at the group of warships guarding the repair-yard.
"Aye-aye," Mercer nodded before turning his attention back to the communication console. The man's stoicism in serious situations was still a shock to his captain, given his usually rather laid-back attitude. "Keldooine Base, this is ST-1143. We're here to commence an inspection. Transmitting codes now."
"Acknowledged, ST-1143," the communications officer on the station replied. "Codes received, proceed to hanger 005."
"Acknowledged, Keldooine Base, proceeding to hangar 005, ST-1143 out," Mercer closed the comm channel down and threw a grin back into the direction of where he knew the Rebel soldiers were waiting, disillusioned. Each of them was equipped with a small, low-frequency transmitter that allowed their comrades to see them but would never be looked for by the Imperial troops.
Harry too turned around and said toward the faint shimmer where he knew the five troop commanders were waiting, "Remember, you have three quarters of an hour until the diversionary attack starts. They will expect their docked military ships to aid in the fight, while the transport will most likely be expected to flee, so you have to be on board by then, ready to act. Now, target allocation?"
"Troop 1, Imperial Cargo Ship Atlas," the left-most shimmer reported in. "Docking tube 001."
"Troop 2, Nebulon-B escort frigate Vigil, docking tube 004."
"Troop 3, Guardian customs corvette Interdictor, hangar 004."
"Troop 4, reactor room, place the charges, get back to the shuttle hangar, take the shuttle out of there."
Satisfied that everyone knew their assigned roles, Harry had insisted on the specific instructions for troop 4 himself, he nodded.
"Then my team and I will confer with the commanding officer, alleging the yard had been compromised by the Hutt cartels and demand to inspect the new Raider-II corvette myself," he followed up with his part of the plan. "Remember, there won't be many stormtroopers around, they were all thrown into the Nar Shaddaa assault, but those that are here won't be affected by the gas. If you see some, you take them out quickly. Troop 5."
"Yes sir," the right-most shimmer responded, catching Harry supremely off-guard; never in his life had he expected to be called sir any time soon. "You move directly to hangar 006, take out everyone onboard that corvette, then hide them. Non-lethal, if possible. And remember, when you've taken over the ships, no heroics; just fly them out of here, we have no idea what the last thing the Imps haven't fixed will be."
"Yes, Sir," the disillusioned troopers all affirmed their familiarity with their orders. And not a minute too early, as their transport was now inching into the hangar numbered 005, where a contingent of base personnel was already awaiting their arrival.
"Good luck, everyone," the young wizard told the assembled group of mostly invisible people. Considering he felt way out of his depth, he had handled himself admirably, he thought.
OOOOOOOO
Flanked by his 'pilot' (Arden) and his partner in investigating acts of disloyalty all around the Empire (Mercer), escorted by two stormtrooper, ISB colonel Landa (Harry) stepped down the ramp of the Lambda shuttle to where the command staff of the repair yard was waiting; the base commander, a Commander Siddick, was visibly nervous at the sudden visit of such a high-ranked ISB officer.
"Commander Siddick," Harry greeted dispassionately, even while he was internally freaking out. "The welcome committee was really not necessary."
"Forgive me, Colonel…" the man replied obsequiously, before turning around to his staff and biting out, "Everyone, dismissed."
"Colonel Landa," the faux colonel introduced himself. "Lieutenants Gorsis and Wildow, they will assist me in my inspection. Lead us to your office."
While he was already moving along the polished ground, the base commander began talking. "I am very sorry, Colonel Landa," the man huffed, obviously not all that used to the physical exertion of keeping enough of a lead on Harry to be considered to be actually leading them. "Had I known you were coming, I would have prepared in advance…"
"Had you known I was coming, it could hardly be called a surprise inspection, could it, Commander?" the disguised intruder interjected. Seemingly not sure what to make of his guest, Siddick fell silent as he continued leading them to his office.
Said office was a rather utilitarian room with a large transparisteel window overlooking the docking tubes on the inside of the station's half-circle shape, appointed with a drab, grey desk, behind which sat an office chair and in front of which were two basic seats.
"Stand guard. No one is to disturb us," Harry ordered the two 'stormtroopers' accompanying him, before he and Mercer sat down on the two remaining chairs opposite the commander. "Now, I am sure you must be wondering what brings us all the way out… here," the disguised wizard said, lacing his speech with all the smug condescension he could muster.
"Yes, Sir, I actually was wondering. We seldom see visitors of your rank out here," the stomach-churningly servile commander admitted, all the while continuing to butter up this supposed colonel. "By the way, might I interest you in a glass of milk? We get it directly from the planet below."
"Milk? I am not here to slurp milk, Commander." Harry's level of voice had gone dangerously low by then. "I am here due to credible concerns that your operation might have been compromised by the Hutt cartels in an effort to steal the exact schematics of the new Raider-II-class corvettes."
Siddick's eyes grew wide in fear, as had been expected. Something like this could, according to Mercer, be both a career- as well as a literal killer.
"Then we will assist you in any possible capacity, sir," he declared quickly, seemingly very intent to 'save his own ass', so to speak.
"I would expect nothing less," Harry commented dismissively. "Recall all your personnel bar the ones manning turrets, reactors and sensors to their barracks, all the ship crews to their ships. No one is to leave their post, the whole base is under a comms-lockdown. Am I understood?"
The base commander nodded fearfully.
"Very well. We will first inspect storage holds and armoury, then you will lead us to the corvette you have inside your hangar. We have to make sure it has not already been tampered with."
OOOOOOOO
At the ramp of the shuttle bearing the number ST-1143, a large number of barely visible shapes (along with four much smaller, black astromech droids) were starting to pour down the ramp, as soon as the large overhead speakers were starting to announce the recall and confinement of all non-essential personnel to their quarters. That left few people for the commando troops to dodge as they carefully made their way through the drab corridors of the Imperial installation, splitting up at their assigned intersections.
The first to break off were troops 3 and 5, their targets being in the hangars directly next to the one their shuttle had landed in. Next were troops 1 and 2, headed for the docking tube and the ships connected to the station through them. That only left troop 4, the smallest of the groups attached to this mission.
Through the empty corridors they went, the state of which enforced a grudging respect in the troop leader, a former smuggler by the name of 'Hound'. At first, he had chafed at being put under the command of such young and inexperienced a commander, no matter the mystical powers he held. Yet, he could not deny that what he had promised, he had definitely delivered: the whole station was indeed feeling like a ghost town.
Therefore, it came as little surprise that, without seeing a single soul and within record time, his troop of three Alliance special forces soldiers reached the Imperials' reactor room. Being completely without any relevant experience as to the inner workings of reactor cores, Hound concentrated on keeping a watchful eye on the two reactor technicians. They had, as essential personnel, disregarded the order to return to their quarters. Fortunately, being essential was not synonymous with being interested in your job, as these two ably demonstrated.
Without interruption, the demolitions expert on his team placed the remote-activated charges and activated the back-up timers that would blow the whole thing up in two standard hours, just in case there was anything left to blow up by then.
OOOOOOOO
Being led around by Commander Siddick turned out to be rather grating, as the man turned out to be both out of shape and incredibly obsequious. As a result of that, it was quite the relief when they finally reached their first target, the supply depot and armoury of the station's garrison.
As expected, both were empty, and Harry went to extra pains to assure the base commander of his satisfaction with that fact.
"Do you notice anything missing, Commander Siddick?" he asked the sweating man standing next to him. "Anything out of the ordinary?"
"No, sir," the commander hurried to confirm.
"Good. It means we might still have a chance to salvage this situation, for your sake," he sneered. "Troopers, make sure this room stays untouched. We can't risk a traitor arming themselves."
Javoc and Corsek stood straight in acknowledgement of the order, then placed themselves outside the door on either side. Of course, as soon as Harry and his entourage were out of sight they would be doing the exact opposite of what they had just supposedly been ordered to do and bag everything that was not bolted to the ground in the expanded bags each of them had hidden in their survival pack.
"To the hangar then," Harry ordered the group.
OOOOOOOO
Troop 1 split away from troop 2 at the junction of docking tube 001 with the corridor to which all of the tubes were affixed. Just like troop 4, they had not encountered any meaningful resistance on their way to their targets, as the only 'being' they had seen had been a mouse-droid whose direction systems had been severely challenged by the almost invisible soldiers.
The remaining group, the largest and most combat-oriented one of the five teams, continued until docking tube 004, which led out to the Imperial escort frigate Vigil; the ship was a member of the well-known, from time to time infamous Nebulon-B class. Not that they were infamous for bad performance, or anything to do with the ship itself. They were actually quite reliable vessels.
No, their infamy within the Imperial lines stemmed from the Nebulon-B's tendency to be stolen, boarded or simply defect along their captains. Today, Frost and his team were looking forward to continuing that grand tradition.
Even past the docking tube, where the group eventually split up, the corridors on the frigate were still dubiously empty, and it began to creep Frost out; a ship this big simply should not be this silent.
With only two of his men left behind him, the troop leader turned his steps toward the bridge, the painted-black astromech rolling along in front of them. As they reached the nerve centre of the ship, it too was eerily silent.
Five minutes of tense waiting later, the timepiece he wore on his wrist went off, letting him know that this was the moment they had been waiting for. Frost inserted the breathing apparatus into his mouth and watched as the astromech locked down the airlocks.
Within moments, the air-ducts started spewing out enough knock-out gas to fell an entire herd of banthas.
OOOOOOOO
"Sir, could I speak to you in private?" Mercer asked as the group of four finally reached the hangar containing the sleek-dagger shaped hull of the Raider corvette.
Harry shooed on Siddick with a dismissive wave of his hand, then turned to his 'lieutenant'. "What is it, Mercer?" he whispered furtively.
"Don't turn around to look at what I tell you," the disguised deserter began. "There's an Imperial dropship in this hangar that should just about fit into the hangar on that corvette. That thing would be perfect for us."
The captain mulled it over for a moment. "You can fly that thing safely?" Mercer nodded. "Alright, as soon as the evacuation starts, you take that ship, we'll let you land in the hangar bay, then we're out of here."
"Will do, boss," the former faux lieutenant acknowledged.
As soon as they were done, Harry returned his attention to the distraught base commander. "So very sorry," he said with a smile that never reached his eyes. "I had to confer with my aide. Lead on, Commander."
Huffing and puffing as if he had just run a marathon, Siddick led them up the ramp of the corvette and into the deserted hangar/vehicle bay.
"Engineering," Harry ordered curtly, briskly leading the way now that he was aware of it from the deck plans, he had studied. Once there, he surveyed the room, satisfied to see the outlines of two disillusioned rebel spec-ops soldiers.
"Empty too," he commented, looking around the room warily. "Very well, then we can focus our entire attention on unveiling the traitor."
With the utterance of the signal phrase, the two outlines in the room's corners fired their weapons, the blue rings of a stun-shot impacting the base commander's impressive girth almost simultaneously.
"Time?" Harry asked into the room, knowing that at least one person would answer.
"T-3 minutes until the dispersal of the gas, T-8 until the diversionary fleet engages," Mercer replied.
Calming himself with a deep breath, the captain observed, "So we wait."