Chasing Specters: Wolves in the Woods

[Kyran O'Hurn]

As he slowly moved forward again, his compact blaster rifle tucked tightly against his shoulder, his eyes scanning the dense underbrush that he was moving through slowly. Years of experience made his movements silent. With his ghillie suit he seemed like nothing more then overly large but silent and slow moving bushes.

What a life Gunnery Sergent Kyran O'Hurn of the 2nd Regiment of the Rebel Alliance had chosen for himself. He was cold, tired, wet, hungry and most of all, he stunk, but he wouldn't have traded his current situation for anything.

Usually Ky worked allone but at the moment there was another silent shadow following behind him. For this mission he was moving with a spotter, in this case a young Sergent.

Dropping to a knee Ky held up his hand in a clenched fist signalling a stop to their progress. Then without even looking back he motioned to the right followed by a flattening of his hand and lowering it. The silent message was for him to move off to the right and lay down in the dense brush. As his spotter moved to the right, Ky moved to the left and did the same. Ten seconds after he had flattened himself to the ground he could hear the rustle of leaves as a patrol moved past them.

After waiting for almost 30 minutes after the last sounds of the patrol moving off Ky finally started to slowly raise from his resting place, motioning for his partner to do the same.

They'd dropped onto the planet 2 days before, but they still had several miles to go before they were even close to being in a position to accomplish their mission. And so once again the pair began to silently move through the dense forest.

[Kyran O'Hurn]

It was good news, bad news several times over.

Firstly, the sun had set hours ago, usually a good thing for someone who made their living stalking the smartest prey in the galaxy. But tonight luck, and the weather forecast was against Ky. Everyone in the military knew about a killer's moon. This was the exact opposite. If Kyran had his choice he would have taken the very slight light that came with a killer's moon rather then the completely full moon that was hanging high in the sky at that moment. It wasn't nearly as bright as the sun, but it definitely took away the advantage that the darkness of night usually provided.

Second, it seemed like all of the enemy patrols had gone home for the night. But without the full darkness of night, they couldn't speed up their movements. While night vision had taken away part of the advantage of darkness that Ky and men of his ilk used to allow them to move stealthily yet more rapidly then durning the day, it was still limited in it's use. But with the moon as bright as it was this night, it didn't matter, and they would have to continue to move at a slower pace then he would have liked. If anyone was close enough to use night vision to spot them, they would have as good a shot at spotting him and his spotter in the moonlight.

Not letting his frustrations get the better of him, Ky continued to move through the woods as quickly as he felt he could. Their target was going to be in position just after day-break and they still had several miles to travel before they could even start looking for a good shooting position.

Suddenly Ky stopped dead in his tracks, slowly dropping down to one knee. Approximately a hundred yards in front of him were five men. Only the sudden flare of one of their cigarettes alerted him to their position before it was too late.

Motioning to his spotter, the pair slowly began to move backwards before finding the safety of a large tree that had been uprooted and lay across the forest floor. Leaning his rifle up against the tree he silently slid his pack from his lower back to the ground. He hadn't planned to take a break until they had reached the edge of the forest, but sometimes one had to be flexible when hunting prey.

[Kyran O'Hurn]

What a change a few hours could make. Not only had the brightness of the moon been replaced, but for the first time on this mission the weather was working for them. Even if it was making him far more uncomfortable, and causing the mission to draw out even longer.

Just before daybreak and a mile away from the treeline a light rain had begun. An hour later it had turned into a steady rain covering the sounds that the sniper team might make, and making it far more likely that the enemy would stay inside. That was the good.

The bad, was the fact that it was also keeping their target inside. The Imperial Colonel that they were targeting spent every morning reviewing his troopers in the courtyard of their small forward base. More to the fact; even if the Colonel decided to still hold his morning review, at just over 900 yards, the rain was more then disrupting the sight line to the camp.

And so instead of killing someone this morning, he would get to take a nap. After finding a fairly secluded spot not far from the tree line Ky and his spotter both dropped their packs. They would alternate watches, and to start Ky got to sleep for a couple of hours before he would take watch.

As he laid back against his pack and let the sensation of the rain help him relax enough to sleep he couldn't help but think to himself, that as usual, his mission had turned into a hurry up and wait. Oh well, it was better then paperwork.

[Kyran O'Hurn]

"Gunny..."

The voice was little more then a whisper, but it was enough to rouse Ky from his sleep. Much to the dismay of the little voice in his head that was screaming "No.. Just two more hours." as it always did when he was allowed to catch a little sleep while on a mission.

The rain had let up a little and was now just a slow drizzle. Not that it mattered. By this point all of his clothes were completely soaked through, but who was he to complain. It was just a part of the job.

His spotter stayed awake for about another half an hour before leaning back on his own ruck sack and going to sleep. This was the worst thing for Ky, on any mission where it happened. For the next two or three hours he would keep a silent watch over his sleeping comrade. Usually he would break down and clean one of his weapons, but the rain made that a rather poor choice of activities.

Looking down at his chrono he checked the time so that he would know when he had taken over the watch. Then letting out a deep breath Ky reached for his ruck and pulled out an MRE and added some water from his canteen, starting the chemical reaction that would let it heat up somewhat. While it heated he got up and made a quick scan of the area with a pair of binoculars, but as he figured he would he didn't see anything but wet leaves.

Letting out another sigh, he sat down and began to eat the rather bland MRE and set in to fight a soldier's worst enemy...boredom.

[Kyran O'Hurn]

Ky tried to stifle a yawn, but it escaped his lips anyway. It was 0530 and other then getting another three hours of sleep, it had been a fairly uneventful night. A slight scare had come early in the morning when a herd of one of the indigenous animals had come moving through the area sounding like an enemy patrol. But Ky and his spotter had quickly figured out what was actually moving on their position and gone back to their hiding spot to wait out the rest of the night.

The only noteworthy news from the night was that the rain had stopped. More over the cloud cover had remained meaning they wouldn't have to worry about the sun reflecting off any of their equipment.

Two hours... That's how long it would be until they could finally complete their mission. Moving to one knee Ky grabbed his ruck sack and pulled it on under his ghilie suit. By the time he had it clipped to his utility harness the Sergeant had donned his own pack and was ready to move out.

"Let's go. Keep alert, they'll have patrols out again."

The Sergeant nodded and together they began moving through the forest again silently, back to the shooting spot they had found the day before. While his mind was on the task at hand, a small part of his brain was already formulating their evacuation from the area.

[Kyran O'Hurn]

Ky was lying flat on his stomach, his E-17D extending out in front of him. Closing his eyes for a moment Ky took a deep breath before moving in behind the scope, his cheek resting against the stock of the gun.

He sighted in on the parade ground. The troopers had already started to assemble, it would only be a couple minutes before his target would make his appearance. Before he could even think about anything else the Colonel stepped out of the command building and started to move toward his troopers.

"Range?"

"1800 meters." Can the response from the young Sergeant who was tucked in behind a rangefinder.

Reaching up Ky turned the knob on his scope a half turn, adjusting it from his original estimated setting. Then he took another deep breath, but this time he kept his eyes open and the cross hairs on the target. As he slowly let the breath out the sensation of time slowing began to take effect.

*Thump*

One slow beat of his heart was followed by another slow intake of air as his finger moved from the trigger guard. He held the breath for a moment.

*Thump*

He let the breath out through his nose slowly, slowly drawing back on the trigger until his lungs were empty and his finger had fully depressed the trigger.

And then it was almost as if he could hear the energy leaving the battery and making it's way to the discharge crystals and through the barrel.

*Thump*

[Kyran O'Hurn]

As soon as the blaster bolt left the end of the barrel time returned to a normal perspective, and Ky watched as the blue bolt of energy flew through the air.

As quickly as it had left the barrel it impacted the target. Ky watched as the blue energy arced between parts of the Colonels body, before the body fell to the ground.

But while everything on the mission so far had appeared as it would have normally, this was the first time that the true nature of the mission was shown.

Not wasting any time Ky began to roll up the mat he had been laying on and attached it to his ruck sack. He didn't waste any time thinking about the Colonel. Mostly because he was the target, and the target had to be terminated. But it was also the fact that the Colonel that Ky had just terminated was in fact a droid.

The rifle he was now slinging over his back was in fact a training model with all the same characteristics as a normal rifle, but shooting ion blasts rather then laser energy.

The mission was a training exercise, for both for him and his spotter, but also for the "imperials" who were quite human. But now that the target was terminated, their role changed. They went back to being rebels... Rebels who had just watched their commanding officer killed by a sniper. A sniper that needed to be captured for interrogation.

Ky and his young partner's role in the mission had changed slightly too. They were now the opposition force. In this case the "Imperials". Their mission was now to escape and evade, while being hunted by the rebel forces.

Without even needing to turn around Ky could tell that the Rebels were already on the move. The sound of speeder bikes were unmistakable, it was time to get into denser brush and quickly.

Taking the lead Ky began to move quickly into the forest worrying less about stealth then about speed for the moment. Once they got deeper into the forest he would start worrying about the stealth.

[Kyran O'Hurn]

They might have only been training blasts, but the blaster bolts that were whizzing over his head were far too close for comfort. He and his spotter had been moving quickly through the forest presumably leaving the Rebels in their wake, but whoever was in charge of the Rebel forces was actually on the ball. More then that, they had had some transportation that Ky hadn't been expecting.

As they had been moving forward they had suddenly run headlong into a platoon sized force that had obviously been transported ahead of them to try and play anvil to the persuing force's hammer. Now they were trying to evade about two platoon's worth of Rebel fighters, moving toward their secondary extraction point using a leap frog retreat allowing one to fire on the "enemy" Rebels while the other moved forward toward the landing zone where a LAAT/i was supposed to be meeting them.

It was Ky's turn to begin to move again while his spotter covered him. It would be the last time that either of them opened fire on the persuing enemy. As soon as Ky reached his partner they would begin to move almost at a sprint to try and put some distance between them and the persuing force. While shooting back was a way to even the odds, it did little to hide their position, and if they wanted to not be tracked all the way back to the LZ they would have to take the risk of not fighting back for a time.

And as he moved quickly past the young Seargant who was still blasting away at an invisible enemy somewhere in the trees, that time had come. Suddenly they both broke out into a sprint trying to keep as low to the ground as they could while moving as quickly as possible toward the LZ.

[Kyran O'Hurn]

They were pinned down behind a couple of trees that had fallen down across the forest floor. "So much for making a run for it..." Ky said to himself. He knew that other members of the pursuing force were likely be flanking them.

It was a fine mess they had gotten themselves into. He had to give credit where credit was due, and when they got back to the base he'd definately be taking the senior NCO of the opposition force out for a couple drinks.
One thing he was confident about, was that no stupid platoon of plastics would have been able to track them, especially if they had actually taken out the commanding officer rather then some droid.

A sudden burst of blaster fire from his right answered the question about whether or not they were flanking or not. Looking over to his partner he motioned for him to start moving back again. There was no way the LAAT was going to land in an LZ this hot.

And then without a reason the enemy fire stopped. He and the young sergeant beside him looked at at each other. He was about to motion for them to start moving again when the silence was broken, but only for him.

"Archangel this is range control. Exercise terminated. Transport inbound." As if they timed it the LAAT/i roared over their head. "Report to Pegasus' office upon your return."

He looked at his partner with a quizzical look and shrugged. Getting up they began to double time it to the LZ just as the LAAT was landing. Throwing their equipment on board they were barely in their seats before the ship took off again.

He didn't know what the regimental commander wanted, but it seemed like it was pretty damned important.

[Kyran O'Hurn]

Ky was off the LAAT before it even hit the ground, his rucksack was slung over one shoulder and his rifle grasped tightly in his right hand. It didn't take him long to make it across the hard concrete landing pad and into the admin building. He didn't know for sure, but he guessed that he really didn't have time go to the team house to store his gear and grab a shower and a clean uniform. So instead he walked up to the desk of the Command Sergeant Major.

"Reporting as ordered." He said as he tossed his ruck sack to the side where it would be out of the way.

"He's expecting you."

Ky nodded and walked toward the door leaving the sniper rifle leaning against the wall just to the left of the General's office, before knocking twice and waiting for the obligitory "enter" that followed shortly after. Opening the door he closed it behind him before standing in attention across from his Commanding Officer who sat behind a nondescript desk.

"Gunnery Sergeant Kyran O'Hurn reporting as ordered."

The General didn't look up. "At easy Gunny."

Ky didn't say anything else but moved to a position of ease with his hands clasped behind his back.

"I have an operation for you. Put together a four man team. Your headed to Ord Vaug. Intel lost an operator about three weeks ago. They got a tip that she's being held at the Imp prion on the planet. But nobody's got any intel on the fraken place. There's a transport waiting for you at the spaceport. It'll take you to rendez-vous with a frieghter that makes regular runs to Vaug. Your orders are to drop in from the upper atmo, recon the prison and any Imp forces that are in the area and exfil."

"Understood Sir. Exfil plan?"

"The transport that is taking you to meet the frieghter is going to follow along to Vaug. It'll be at the spaceport five days after your infiltration. The pilots have orders to depart no later then 1900. You need to be there, or your finding your own way off that rock."

Ky nodded.

"Understood."

"Good. Your ride leaves in two. Good luck Gunny."

Ky snapped to attention.

"Thank you sir."

With that he turned and left. He had two hours to go through the loggs and find out which of the Pathfinders were deployment ready, pick his team, pull his gear, and get to the transport.

"So much for a shower." Ky said to himself as he walked back out into the outer office and picked up his rucksack before heading to start his preperations.

[Kyran O'Hurn]

It had taken him and the team he had selected less then the two hours he had been given to collect their gear and make it to the landing pad. In fact he had been able to grab a quick shower, something he was grateful for since he wasn't going to see one for at least a week.

That had been nearly two days ago. A day to the rendez-vous point, and then another day from there on board the freighter, which they had found out was operated by an organization sympathetic to the rebellion. Meaning that they didn't have to just drop out the side door, but in fact could get the pilot to put them over the best place to jump into, something which was always a bonus when you could get it.

His team of Sergeant Haws, and Specialists Gabrosi and L'yar, callsigns Hawk, Griffon, and Wyvern respectively, had all checked and rechecked their gear and now like him were sitting on the cold durasteel deck plating and leaning against a cargo container eating what was likely going to be their last hot meal for a while.

They were each dressed in their forest coloured jump/combat suits. Their helmets, life support system and for this jump, jump packs, were all ready to go and sitting just outside of the airlock with their ruck sacks and weapons.

Suddenly the intercom came alive with the voice of the captain of the freighter. "Gentleman, we are preparing to make our last series of jumps, we'll be arriving in 6 hours."

Putting his plate down on the deck with a slight clatter sound Ky looked up at the others.

"Okay lets go over this one last time and then get some shut eye." He waited until all of the men had given him their attention. "We're supposed to be arriving about 3 hours before sun up, so it's going to be a night jump. But just in case we're using jump packs so we can't be spotted coming in with 'chutes. Once on the ground we have 5 days to recon and collect any intel we can. We'll split into two teams Gabrosi and I will head for the prison. Haws and L'yar, you'll head to scout the garrison that is near by...."

For the next ten minutes they went over the plan, and what exactly they were looking for. Once they were done they all headed off for some sleep. In less then 6 hours they would start what would essentially be one long day.... but none of them would have it any other way.

[Kyran O'Hurn]

Ky floated under the canopy of his tactical parachute the darkness surrounding him. Thankfully it was a moonless night and so none of the four troopers would be spotted from the ground by the naked eye. Only sophisticated sensor packages set up to scan for drop troops would have spotted them. And initial intel stated that the garrison didn't have any of those...too much of a back water planet apparently.

Several more minutes passed as Ky scanned the ground through his jump helmet. The helmet's integrated night vision system allowed the very low ambient light of the night sky to be enough to produce let Ky see the ground below in the washed out green glow that came with the night vision.

Spotting their landing zone Ky steered himself to the landing zone where he hit the ground with barely a whisper of the grass moving beneath his feet. In the two minutes following the other three Pathfinder troopers hit the ground. Unpacking their gear and burying their chutes only took 20 minutes, and soon the two teams were heading out to their targets, each in different directions only a few compass degrees apart.

[Kyran O'Hurn]

Ky and Gabrosi had make better time then he had figured they would. The bucketheads must have figured that the planet was too far out of the way to be of any interest to the Rebellion because the patrols were few and far between. Hell the three that had come close enough to them to put eyeballs on looked like they were sleepwalking through their patrols.

The quicker transit time actually worked in their favour, as they arrived near the prison and found a spot to observe from about an hour before guard rotation took place. Watching as the new shift arrived by hover transport and the change over made Ky shudder. He felt sorry for whoever was in charge of the garrison and guard ranks, because whoever it was had the sorriest bunch of troopers he had ever seen.

In the back of his mind he wondered if the second team was finding the same thing at the Imperial garrison compound. He only had to wait a couple hours to find out.

"Bravo to Alpha. How do you read?"

It was Sgt. Haws calling in for their agreed upon 2100 check in.

"Alpha reads clear. Go ahead Hawk."

"Nothing much doing here. Not sure why the sent us. So far we haven't seen anything to show that there is a credible trooper in the bunch. Not sure why they felt the need to send us. A cadet company could knock over these guys."

Ky could hear a bit of frustration in the Sergeants voice. It was likely that they had all been hoping for a bit more of a challenge then they were getting.

"Keep that kind of thought to yourself Hawk. They can still pull the trigger. Keep your eyes open tonight. I'll check in at 0500."

"Understood."

Something just didn't make sense to Ky. Either the Empire had no clue who they were holding inside the prison. Or the prisoner they were looking for wasn't there. Or something odd was happening.

As they began to set up for the night Ky quietly called over Gabrosi.

"I want to try and grab one of the bucketheads tonight and ask him some questions. Keep your eyes out for a loner."

Gabrosi nodded before moving away again. It was going to be a long night, but if they could grab a stormtrooper or two and have a chat with them it would be a good night.

[Kyran O'Hurn]

It was 0330 when Gabrosi gently nudged Kyran out of his light sleep. It only took him a moment to regain his bearings before he looked up at his partner, and with a slight nod of his head asked him what was going on.

Gabrosi quietly told him that there was a three man patrol heading their way. Nodding Ky took a moment before spelling out the plan. They'd sneak in behind the trio and take out the trailer and try and capture the other two, but they agreed that they would take out two of the troopers if they had to. There was no sense in putting themselves in harms way just to try and capture another hostage.

Leaving their hidding spot Ky and Gabrosi silently moved their way through the woods under the cover of darkness. The moon had set but the stars were bright enough to light up their way. Though there was little doubt in his mind that the troopers were carrying night vision equipment.... or at least they should be.

For their part Ky and Gabrosi were each only carrying a small equipment bag at the small of their back, their combat knives, and a pair of silenced slug shooting pistols. They weren't as powerful as energy pistols, but the were quieter, and since Ky didn't plan on using them at a distance of any more then a few feet the power wouldn't matter.

They took the long way around, circling in behind the patrol and began to make their way up behind them. As Ky moved forward he now saw what Hawk had been talking about the night before. The three men in front of them were either complete rookies, or bored out of their skulls. The lead pair were well out in advance of the third member who was supposed to be watching their back, but looked more like he was out for an afternoon stroll.

Motioning over to Gabrosi Ky flashed a series of hand signals. The trailer was so far behind the other two that he decided that they'd take him hostage vs killing him and trying to take both of the other two. The pair of Spec Ops troopers closed the gap with the Imperial trooper quickly and before he could know what happened Ky had his forearm wrapped around the troopers neck and and jerking his head back. The motion was not meant to choke off the airway, but to expose a bit of skin where he plunged a syringe filled with a sedative into the trooper's neck.

As the sedative began to take effect Ky lowered the trooper to the ground as Gabrosi covered his movements. Dragging the body off the side of the trail and out of sight in case there was another patrol that came by while they were off chasing the other two Imperial troopers, they'd come back and retreive the body after dealing with the other two, and it would be at least a couple hours before the trooper regained conciousness. Just to be safe though, Ky removed the troopers comm gear and then bound him with some flex cuffs that he pulled from his equipment bag.

With the first trooper captured Ky returned to Gabrosi and tapped him on the shoulder signalling for them to move out toward the other two troopers.