Ghosts in the Ether

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

"Captain, incoming Holonet comms, from Captain Terius."

Lieutenant Mallin didn't waste any time as Cirr stepped on the bridge, fresh from an engine room inspection and usual fussing with his engineer. So much the better. He needed a diversion to keep him from pestering below decks too much. It was a compulsion difficult to ignore for the ex-engineer.

"jI'll take jit jin mjy offjice, Ljieutenant."

The Cizerack took a detour from his approach to his chair, hanging a left, and stepped through the sliding door leading to his ready room. Opting to stand rather than take the message at his desk, since it came from his flotilla command, Captain Raurrssatta activated the floor-mounted holoprojector, intending on having a conversation with Captain Terius's hologram on a 1:1 basis.

"Captajin?"

[Soto Terius]

Half a spiral arm away, Soto Terius set down the mug of lukewarm caf he'd been cradling, and extracted himself from his chair. A hand tugged down at the front of the vest that had bunched a little while he'd been sitting: he blamed the cut and fit of the garment, while his medical officer insisted the cut and fit of his body was more the problem.

A few steps was all it took to cross his modestly scaled office, and step onto a holo-platform of his own, a respectful distance from where the shimmering blue Cizerack was now projected.

Terius returned Raurrssatta's greeting with a curt nod, and a "Captain," of his own.

Formalities taken care of, the Corellian turned his attention to much more important matters; apparently, idle curiosity seemed to take precedent. "How's she holding up?" he asked. From one Captain to another, and one engineer to another, it was clear to which she he was referring.

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

"Stjill needs worrk jin the engjines."

Captain Raurrssatta flicked his ears, and it was more or less understood that was as good as it was going to get on account of his obsessive compulsion. Cirr admitted as much with a wry grin.

"But fast enough forr you. News frrom the flotjilla?"

Technically Novgorod was an asset of Captain Terius's flotilla and the command structure flowed in that direction. However, due to the frigate's speed and force multiplying effect at running sorties, she operated on a very long leash. Captain Raurrssatta nevertheless had to be prepared to give close support at short notice.

[Soto Terius]

"Commander Nadine from the Relentless finally gave birth to those twins she's been lugging around inside her," he answered, bringing the Captain up to speed with the latest scuttlebutt. "Rumour has it that the labour lived up to the ship's name."

Of course, that was hardly the kind of update that was being asked for; but Soto's mentor back during the Clone Wars had taught him that a good amount of innane trivia and chatter were important tools for any good Captain: they created a level of mild boredom that helped lull the crew into compliance, just to have a reason to escape.

"I have a mission for you," he said at last, after a lengthy pause. "Something requiring speed, stealth, and more than a little unorthadox flying." A ghost of a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "It started sounding like your kind of mission the second it landed on my desk."

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

"Sounds ljike you pjicked the rrjight shjip, then."

Cirr nodded with confidence. He was starting to get a feel for his crew, and for the kind of can-do independence that Novgorod instilled in him. It was borne out of his days on the Layla, but he'd rather be flying fast and crazy at the tip of the spear than trundle ahead as another gun on the line, waiting to beat down and get beaten down in kind.

"What do you have?"

[Soto Terius]

Glancing down at a datapad briefly, Soto punched in a few commands that would transmit the mission files to the Novgorod, for the Captain to review at his leisure. In the meantime however, he offered the basics.

"The General has had us ramping up the pressure on the Imperials for weeks, throwing hit and run attacks at them from all angles. We haven't broken them, but we've shaken them loose." He tucked the datapad away, and clasped his hands behind his back. "Now it's time to punch a hole."

"What we need is a distraction: something to draw the Imperials out far enough for the flotilla to break through. We have our target; we need you hitting one of their listening posts. One ship alone won't be enough bait, though. Which begs the question -"

His mouth tugged into a hint of a knowing smile. "- how good is your ECW Officer, Captain?"

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

"What ECW Offjicerr?"

It was a rhetorical question. The dirty truth was that Mallin had been spread thin over comms and ECW. He did a good enough job, but ECW wasn't his speciality.

Cirr took a moment to flick through the mission particulars. It was a two pronged assignment consisting of masking their own presence and faking the presence of a false flotilla. That was something that would take more than manning a simple jamming apparatus.

"How much tjime untjil we go ljive? jI thjink jI know someone perrfect forr the task, but we need some tjime to get them."

[Soto Terius]

Soto adopted a grim half-frown, his fingers toying through the whiskers of his beard. The General gave him a broad mandate and a long leash with which to operate, so time scales were largely left up to his own discretion. That said, in the world of Intelligence, old news was often wrong news: leaving the situation too long could completely close their window, and unravel months of work.

"I can give you forty-eight hours, Captain," he said eventually; carefully. "And that's forty-eight real, Coruscant standard hours: not the needlessly dramatic forty-eight hours and a few minutes that you spacers like to play around with."

His hands clasped behind his back. "I'll hold off the assault, awaiting your signal. If we don't heard from you, we'll assume the mission is scrubbed: if you're just late, you'll end up in there on your own."

Despite the hologram, he still managed to translate his piercing gaze across a hundred lightyears. "Can you get it done?"

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Captain Raurrssatta nodded confidently.

"Of courrse. jI know ourr man. jIt won't take long to get my team togetherr."

He paused a moment, an ear flicking up as he added an afterthought.

"jI'll contact you jin one day. Raurrssatta out."

With that, the channel ended. The felinoid moved to his desk, opening a new channel, this one to another corner of the galaxy.

"Morrgan."

[Morgan Evanar]

Alliance communications were all encrypted, of course. They were piggybacked cleverly over the Empire's own equipment via the Holonet. What was once a highly restricted resource had been somewhat cracked back open, although Imperial Battlegroups would often black out the transmitters themselves after aggressive action against civilian populations sympathetic to the Rebellion. While the Rebels were organized primarily into small, fast response task forces, communications blackouts limited reaction times to the aformetioned crises. The Empire had become so thorough at disinformation that they would fake news reports from the planets in question for up to a month, depending on the locale's importance.

The concepts of hyperspace transmissions were grasped by few, but if Morgan could figure out how they worked, and if it was feasible to create more at moderate cost, it would be a huge boon to bypass the Empire completely. He sifted through data pads on hypercomm theory, and took notes wherever something concrete came up, and would theorycraft ways to impliment it with cheaper equipment.

"Morgan Evanar to the nearest comm room." Part of Morgan hoped it was Adia, but knew it wasn't. He took an engineering ladder shaft. It was faster than a lift, since he was only two decks from the comm. The Challenger's holocomm wasn't a retrofit, but a Clone Wars classic. It lacked the resolution of some of the newer holoencoders and emitters, but they were incredibly reliable.

"Cirr? Or should I say... Captain Raurrssatta?" He pronounced the Cizerack's last name with a bit of jest.

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Cirr grimaced like he'd been skewered.

"No need forr namecalljing, now."

That moniker was his albatross now. He knew Morgan was eating it up, so he let him have his moment of fun at his strange situation.

"How's ljife jin undjisclosed locatjions?"

Small talk as per usual. Cirr was at least curious how things were aboard the Wheel since the Coruscant mission and his...reassignment. He inwardly bristled against thinking about it in any other terms. Old wounds still hurt, no matter what was accomplished in inflicting them. He missed the men and women he was charged with protecting for so long.

[Morgan Evanar]

"We're fine. I miss talking shop, though." Morgan hadn't though about it very much since Cirr left, but Morgan had learned more about ship innards in the last two years from Cirr than most could learn in a lifetime. The burly Cizerack had a keen mind for the finer points of how a ship actually operated. Morgan was an information sponge with a natural intuition for the details of advanced theories and implementation/simulation. Also, there really wasn't anyone else who made a gym partner worth a damn since the 27th Marines had rotated out and took their Wookie contingent with them. He'd been authorized more food since his physical and managed to put on another solid 10 kilos of lean mass.

Cirr's face shifted, and Morgan knew he wanted more detail.

"Fizzkrik still won't listen about the shield buffers, Adia's... off somewhere. Serena is doing much better, but she still has some demons haunting her." The Jedi shrugged. "I think we're about as normal as we can be." There were some other details he wanted to add, but wasn't comfortable. Even if hyperspace data streams were nearly impossible to snoop on, the physical parts of the loop weren't.

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

"jI don't thjink you'd want to be a fly on the wall jin my shop, as of late."

Cirr gave a harried sigh.

"jI'll leave jit at the fact that my fjirrst love jis Correlljian desjign. Everrythjing else just takes offense when you beat jit wjith a hammerr."

He wasn't at all surprised about Fizzkrik either. They'd shared plenty of bitch sessions about luddites and how to live with them. Neither one of them were immune to their disasters. Again, beating things with a hammer should be a universal treatment.

"Anyway..."

He defused with a laugh.

"...jI djidn't just call to talk shop. jI don't get enough frree tjime forr jit anymorre."

Now he was the Captain again, much as he was loathe to admit.

"jI've got a wjild karree'thi of a mjissjion, the kjind you'd love. jI've alrready told jimporrtant men jI don't move my ass wjithout you on jit, so you'll forrgjive me jif jI've just put you on the spot."

He winked, fluttering his ears.

"They can only courrt-marrtjial one of us, afterr all."

[Morgan Evanar]

Cirr knew Morgan well enough to know that he wasn't a glory hound, and the only reason he ended up on the foolish adventures he had was because they were absolutely necessary. However, Cirr would only bring up something like this if it needed Morgan's combinations of expertise. Morgan was only a decent pilot by virtue of reflex and spatial depth, so that wasn't it. The Rogues were better. His frame didn't fit well in a starfighter anyway. It wasn't teleportation, because Cirr flat out didn't trust it. Not that Morgan blamed him. He knew how to do it, not how it worked. No, it was something technical.

"jI need you for the E-Warr con." Cirr stated flatly. The Jedi paused, but his eyes lit up slightly. ECW wasn't something he had any real experience with first hand, but it was all signal noise and reflections, which Morgan understood well. If Cirr gave him the manuals, Morgan would be able to read it in a few hours. On the fly, there weren't a lot of slicers who could match his input speed after his Jedi training.

"OK. Send me your specs and an equipment rundown. What about your current E-War officer?" Morgan asked.

"jI don't rreally jhave one. Malljin jis already sprread thjin on the comms." Cirr explained. "He can't handle both."

Morgan gave the Cizerack Captain a knowing nod.

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

The E-Warfare suite was one of those wink-and-a-nod gifts from Koensayr-Meorrrei that had been retrofitted into the Novgorod's existing compartment. Technically there wasn't anything illegal or military about quantum-band refractors. It was hobby kit stuff to most people. Of course when you put advanced logic like the kind a hyperdrive motivator could crunch into it, and boosted the band, and then combined it with things like spectrum threaders, you could do all kinds of creative and malicious things to comm spectrum. Like, produce exponentially populating moments of packets to bog down triangulators, making people wanting to target you with turbolasers and missiles need either a lot of luck, or a dozen ships actively headhunting.

Of course, that was how it was explained to him by a very-motivated salesperson in a conversation that did not exist. Mallin was just lucky to keep half of it plugged in on a good day. Nothing to fault him, he was just spread in every direction.

"jI'm trransmjittjing coorrdjinates forr a rrendezvous. jIf you ljike what you see, we'll be wajitjing therre."

[Morgan Evanar]

The small courier shuttle Morgan had borrowed sat in space at the rendezvous location Cirr had specified. He took advantage of the transit time to read the Koensayr-Meorrrei ECW suite whitepapers and documentation. Morgan read the user guide first, of course, but found it a little light on the fundamentals of how the device worked. Some of it was classified, and it shipped with some clumsy presets. Morgan had started work on more effective echoing and reflection, even to bring the illusion of a full-sized task force to bear. So long as they stayed out of visual range as long as it mattered, they could pull this off. Imperial sensor suites were well known. It wasn't like the eyeballs had much in the way of anything beyond a pair of blasters.

He was unsurprisingly early, so he went back to designing scenarios and keying up formulas for the different sensor packages that might be encountered.

Morgan looked up an hour later, when motion caught his peripheral vision.

"Holy shitsnacks." The Marauder class Corvette's Alliance colors were battle-scarred, but in good repair. Very much like a proud Trandoshan. Morgan waited a few seconds while he got over his fight-or-flight reaction, and hailed the Novgorod.

"Shuttle 813712-AV to Alliance ship, requesting permission to board."

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

"Permission granted, Shuttle 813712-AV. Approach the docking bay on the ventral hull. The Captain is expecting you."

Optimizing the use of their time, Novgorod also oriented about its axis, exposing the atmo field on its ventral hull that led to its docking bay.

Cirrsseeto wasted little time leaving the bridge, and took the lift down to the lower deck to meet his old friend. The bay was buzzing with activity, clearing a few cargo pallets to provide the precious square meterage necessary to accomodate the shuttle in the cramped compartment.

[Morgan Evanar]

There wasn't much room for error, but Morgan was good at this sort of gravity oriented piloting. It was more like flying a speeder than a star fighter. He put the small shuttle effortlessly amidst the pallets, but had to climb one to leave the shuttle properly.

"Cirr!" Morgan said when he spotted the fellinoid. He swung is his long legs over the palletalized boxes, and hit the ground. Morgan embraced the Cizerack in a friendly hug, and clapped him on the back.

"So this is your new tub, eh?"

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Morgan gave as good as Cirr did, so it was great to reciprocate as he rarely got the chance. He also didn't call him Captain, which was a much needed breath of fresh air.

"Only thjing new about thjis gjirrl jis the faceljift."

He laughed and shrugged.

"One helluva faceljift though. Rruns tjight enough forr me, so jI'd put herr agajinst any shjip jin the Alljiance jin herr wejight class."

The walked together toward the utility lift that would carry them to the bridge.

"Stjill not used to somethjing thjis...bjig though. Compljicates thjings wjith almost two hundrred people lookjing to you and expectjing you to know what you'rre dojing."

It felt nice to confide, even if it was a fleeting confessional inside an elevator.

"A few months ago jI was stjill rrepajirrjing engjines forr a trrade."

[Morgan Evanar]

Morgan nodded. "Trading freedom for responsibility and power is always awkward." Hell, they'd done some foolish, straight out of a holo adventure things together.

When the bridge doors opened, only a Cathar ensign paused saluted. Cirr gave a simple nod, and she continued past. The rest of the bridge crew was busy with mission preparations, save for one empty seat, next to the communications console. When Cirr and Morgan moved closer, Morgan immediately recognized the layout of the displays and controls.

It was the E-War console. Full spectrum color displays that could be set to accommodate multiple different vision spectrum for multiple species operation. There were control clusters for grouped functions, with hold button toggles, plus a full Basic keyboard and macro buttons. It was the top of the line model, as Morgan had learned through the documentation. Cirr had sent him a general overview, but there were many details that were lacking.

"Can you give me a more detailed briefing?"

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

"jI can trry."

Cirr stood behind Lieutenant Mallin as he also worked with Morg, who was offered his own chair at the station.

"Morg, thjis jis my comm offjicerr, Ljieutenant Malljin."

"Sir."

The lieutenant wasn't sure how to address the newcomer, who obviously wasn't Alliance military. He gave a curt nod and offered a hand.

"I'm here to liase with you. Captain said you'll be manning dedicated E-WAR for this mission."

The lieutenant inwardly hoped it was a more permanent posting.

"This isn't standard kit on any Navy boat, and I've served on everything from a missile skiff to Mon Cal dreadnoughts. The core E-WAR interface is...right here. That'll handle your active jamming and scrambling, I'm assuming that's nothing new for you."

He looked up to Cirr, and the Captain gave a nod confirming that he could skip the vanilla. With a cough, Mallin moved on.

"Right. Now here. This is what we've been calling the Spook Box. Koensayr-Meorrrei quantum receiver and transmitter. Normally, I use that to thread spectrum on HoloNet, between official bands. Instant transmission, same clarity you probably already know. But..."

He tapped a few controls on the panel, and a second panel popped up.

"The quantum generator can also create an enormous assortment of various flavors of electromagnetic and other energetic radiation occurrences. I just played with it a few days and made a crude enough approximation of a solar flare ejection. Took a lot of juice to do it, but it was like spitting in the eye of every comm buoy in three star systems."

He shrugged.

"In retrospect, not a good idea to test it in Bothan space. Intel lost spectrum for two hours over that stunt and it almost cost me my ass."

[Morgan Evanar]

Morgan whistled low and winced as he sat.

"Damn. That wouldn't have been my first test choice." He said, somewhat sympathetically. Sometimes you've just got to take a thing out and see what it can do. But it's usually best to do it in an empty area. Mallin was overexcited at first, would have been Morgan's guess.

"So the first order of the day is artificial force projection. I already have some ideas based on the specifications you sent me, Captain." Morgan didn't twist the knife, but he knew that some decorum had to be maintained, for everyone else's sake. Cirr nodded.

"I took most of the Challenger's passive sensor logs for the past three days and made a compilation based on ship class and powerplant and drive type. It's pretty thorough, and I think I managed to model everything from a star fighter up. I have some other ideas, but we'll need some time to field test..." He trailed off, and hoped that there was some time for a field test.

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Initiative.

Cirr loved initiative. He knew the kind of can-do attitude Morgan had, and wasn't disappointed. Thumbing through the data, the amount of metrics being displayed were thick enough to convince.

A mischievious smile spread on his face.

"Ljieutenant, do we have coordjinates forr Captajin Terrjius's flotjilla?"

Mallin caught the fever of conspiracy from his XO, and cracked a grin too.

"He did say he was expecting to link up in a day, didn't he?"

Cirr glanced at the helm, who would give him an answer on whether they'd be able to physically join the flotilla in time. The helmsman nodded.

Cirr laughed, and clapped Morg on the shoulder.

"Let's have some fun then. Plot a courrse!"

[Morgan Evanar]

Morgan uploaded the sensor data off his data pads, integrating them into the lacking database the suite came with. His fingers moved a feverish pace.

An hour later, Captain's Office:

"I implemented most of the models already, like a MC-80, a few of the Action Series, a Neb B medspec, a clone of this ship, a Mark 2 and 3 Corellian Corvette, A Victory-class and a Venator. Plus the X, Y, B and A-Wings, with a randomizer filter on the A-Wings. Now I think I can pull the wool down with just the default package, but if you give me access to the chaff launchers, I think I can put on an even more convincing show." Cirr's eyebrow raised, and then his lips separated into a grin.

"You always werre a cleverr bastarrd."

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Like there was any objection.

"Done."

Cirr replied almost in a half laugh. He was aware in a layman's understanding that much of what the E-WAR package could do relied a lot on uncertainty predictors and being able to produce copious amounts of organized chaos, much of which was cast off of ambient space dust, itself a study in chaos. If you added intentional mayhem, like chaff...

"Looks ljike you and my Ljieutenant have an...underrstandjing."

This was a social call, even if they were talking shop. Cirr was blessed that Morg was one of the proud few he could cut the bullshit with, and he recognized that by pulling down a decanter from his shelf.

"We'rre a shjip full of bastarrds, we arre. Djirrty trrjicks and cheap shots. jI used to hate that sorrt of thjing, you know."

He poured each of them a drink.

[Morgan Evanar]

"The Cizerack always liked a straight up fight better." Morgan acknowledged, and swirled the drink.

"I don't think I've seen a straight up fight in my life." He added with a chuckle, and contemplated the sifter before him. He sniffed, inhaling the details of a good Corellian brandy. Sanis's influence, no doubt. Morgan contemplated what Sanis was up to. With the right XO, he might make an impressive squadron commander, but he could never run a large ship, Morgan figured. If he had a group of fully committed and measured pilots, he would be able to get the most of them, but anything bigger than that would probably be too much. That dude needed a hug bad, the Jedi concluded.

"To the shadows of the heavens, may they spread uncertainty to our enemy, so that more lives may be spared." Cirr nodded somewhat solemnly, and the pair clink the sifters gently before taking a sip.

"So how's mamma? I know she pulled some strings to get you that bag of tricks."

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Cirr couldn't comment personally on the philosophy of the Cizeri military ethos, but he knew of it indirectly plenty. Show the flag, show force openly, and tolerate nothing less than full austerity. Really, a bunch of frumps. One of his sisters, T'yeellaa, made Huntress Captain years ago. That only confirmed the bias.

Morgan's disdain for a fair fight made Cirr think about what was unsaid in the room: Sanis. He missed his friend. He hoped he was well. Beyond that, he couldn't dwell on him. It would only do harm.

He sipped after Morg's toast, thinking about his question.

"Mama...well. Let's just say that jI neverr thought jI'd make that kjind of an jimprressjion. She put so much on the ljine just to get me offworrld, jI fjigurred that jI'd caused enough trrouble."

He shook his head.

"jI forrgot to take jinto account how much she hates to be told she can't do somethjing."

[Morgan Evanar]

Morgan didn't know Taataani Meorrrei very well, but what he had heard pointed squarely at the truth. Cirr was worried she may have overreached far more than was prudent, even for Taataanni. The Matriarch was a formidable economic force, but her heavy involvement in Koensayr and the Novgorod retrofit, plus the supplies that ended up regularly in the hands of the Rebellion, was bound to raise the attention of the Empire sooner than later.

"At least she can tell you what she does." Morgan added, and too another sip.

"How's Lyannie?

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Cirr's ears bobbed, betraying himself as he tried to hide a smile behind his glass.

"She's good. Good good."

He coughed to head a purr off at the pass.

"Rrecrrujited herr to my engjineerrjing team, sjince jI can't tune the engjines myself anymorre."

His smile broadened.

"Rrank has jit's prrjivjiljiges, jI guess."

[Morgan Evanar]

Cirr had always been exceptionally modest about his relationships, and part of it was his Cizerack upbringing and the other part was Cirr didn't kiss and tell. He had a shy sort of honor that Morgan suspected was entirely his own, and not part of his species.

"It certainly does, you sly dog." Morgan cracked a grin. If Cirr was someone else, he would have been trolled more thoroughly and jokingly, but Morgan knew that was all he was going to get out of the big fellinoid. A nonexistant opportunity to make a "dat ass" joke.

"She's a total sweetheart. You treat her right or I'll kick your ass into next week."

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Cirr only replied with a smile fixed to his face, carefully followed by a sip. It was his discrete agreement to everything Morgan said. He didn't enter into this lightly. It wasn't his way. What he had with Lyanie was far more than a physical bond. It was a meeting of...well...everything.

He still wasn't sure what to say beyond that. He had plans. Big plans. Just hadn't had time to put them into words.

"Wouldn't drream of bejing anythjing less than everrythjing she deserrves."

Speaking of women, he seemed to recall.

"So...that lady we got out of Corruscant. How'd that go? jI know you two arre close, yeah?"

[Morgan Evanar]

Morgan paused to consider how to best put it.

"Serena. She's a Jedi Knight, and my teacher. I'm her student. Right now I'm her only student. So, right. As far as Jedi go, I'm a garbage empath. Some of us can hear or feel emotional states, even surface thoughts easy as a simple as a child's holo is to an adult. Or breathing. You have to show me the flash card with the word and picture and read what it says slowly, and then do a live demonstration." Morgan explained, to put it in context. Cirr nodded.

"We're close enough as, well, teacher and student, that I have a good idea of how much pain she was in. She's mostly better now. Sometimes she wakes up screaming at night, and even though I'm not always on the same ship, I wake up with an almighty jolt and hit my head on something." He paused, and took a long, slow sip.

"I get the barest of images, but the terror and despair, those come through clear as day. She's one of the strongest people I know, and they damn near slagged her to the bones. The stimulants and psychotropics they had here on were terrible enough on their own, but what they did to her psyche..." Morgan grew distant for a moment, his hand absentmindedly swirled the liquor in the glass. He looked away from Cirrseeto, and at his glass.

"The closest term I can come up with for it is repeated emotional rape."

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

"R'aashthaa i'irryai...Morrgan, that's..."

What do you say to something like that? Something that threatened to redefine evil. He had a feeling there was nothing good waiting for her in that place. He wished he didn't know.

His only suitable comment to that was to top off his guest's drink.

"Guess that makes two of us that ought to do rrjight by ourr women, then."

There was an unspoken yearning Cirr kept shut deep in his throat, and that was to implore Morgan to make the sacrifices of Coruscant worth it. To make her whole again. To turn this fucking war around for the Alliance and the Jedi. How do you ask someone that? You don't.

[Morgan Evanar]

"Cheers to that." Morgan brightened quickly. The fact of the matter was that they had pulled off one of the more insane stunts in history at the cost of a single light freighter. That was the bare, naked reality of the situation.

Morgan felt a little guilty. There should have been a pool for a new ship for Sanis, or something.

"There isn't enough alcohol in the galaxy for this end of the conversation." He said. Cirr nodded, and they toasted.

"So, oh, hey. I've got something you might appreciate." Morgan reached inside his nearly ever-present multi-pocketed jacket, and pulled out a metal cylinder: his lightsaber.

"I made a lightsaber."

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Setting his drink aside instantly, Cirr leaned forward, feeling a bit like a kid. It was easy to take these contraptions for granted on the Wheel, but Cirr always stole a glance when he could. Not that he had any delusions about ever using one of them. He just admired it from an engineering concept. It was simple in theory and so mind-jarringly difficult to actually do in practice. The Jedi said they meditated to shape their crystals and design the superstructure, letting the force be their guide. That concept was lost on the felinoid, but he still inwardly schemed, sure that there had to be a way for good honest engineering to get that kind of precision too.

"So jealous..."

He bit on his lower lip to keep him from blurting out a question to ask if Morgan would take the whole thing apart and strip it to components on his desk for him to oogle over. Take the butcher's word for the quality of the steak, after all.

He managed to gain some composure. Some.

"jI'm glad at least some of you can take all that jinsufferrable talent and turrn jit to good, honest worrk. Maybe not. jIf therre was a sect of Jedji monks clojisterrjing jin a hut somewherre makjing engjines, jI would've neverr found honest work."

[Morgan Evanar]

Morgan laughed, a welcome sound after the downership that was a lack of Sanis and the Layla.

"You'd be just as good as them." Morgan said earnestly. Cirr had a certain holistic understanding combined with years of elbows in grease experience that amounted to what seemed to be intuition when it came to power systems and ships. Cirr stared at the Jedi weapon for a moment longer before handing it back to Morgan, who saw the unasked question. He pushed a slide lock aside, and then unscrewed the base of the weapon. The entire assembly slid out of the handle for easy repair. The bolt that held the base assembly in was threaded in the middle, and a slightly smaller hex key at the tip, which matched the screws that held every part to the saber frame. Morgan returned the bare weapon to Cirr after disconnecting the power cell.

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Cirr held the inner workings carefully with both hands, mindful of finger placement as he turned the structure over and over. Okay, forget lofty aspirations like the maddening god-like ability to feather down harmonics in the crystal to subatomic-levels of oscillation. Forget dealing with heat cascade. Forget all of that stuff that would fill a theory textbook. The design and placement of all the rest of the parts made Cirr smile with appreciation. Say what you will about spirituality or whatever, but you had to be an engineer to understand why you put a hex bolt here and not there, and why it made sense to spatially align things not simply for efficiency of volume, but also to make them deceptively easy to maintain. This wasn't some over-worked piece of breadbox that he'd mess up with a careless tweak of his wrist. It all made sense.

And in the midst of all of the awe...back to reality.

"Captain, it's Mallin."

Cirr grimaced with a flash of teeth.

"Kosa!"

Passing Morgan a look of much deserved appreciation, he returned the components to the Jedi, and tapped his desk comm.

"What?"

"Sir, this is going to sound a little crazy, but the spook box just activated itself. It's, uh. It's wanting to see you and Mr. Evanar."

[Morgan Evanar]

Cirr and Morgan shared a look of mutual confusion, even as Morgan's hands reassembled the weapon without a second glance. He'd put the thing together, he knew where everything went without looking. Morgan paused to replace the saber into it's holster and followed Cirr out the bridge.

Morgan knew the thing had some droid brain components, probably astromech based. Morgan and Cirr stopped and scrutinized the console.

"What do you mean, it asked for us?" Morgan said and rubbed his chin. What the hell.

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Cirr's gait slowed, almost like blood flow to his legs was diverted to his brain as he drifted in his thoughts. A sudden look of realization hit him.

"Ohhh. Oh."

Then his eyebrows knit.

"Wajit...how?"

By the time he caught up with his brain, Morgan was already with Mallin by the spook box. The screen displayed a holographic user interface that was blank with the exception of a few minor notes about processes that were running in the periphery.

He opened his mouth, and quickly shut it. What the hell was he going to say, exactly? He looked to Morgan, in a cosmic game of chicken to see who was going to blink first and look like an idiot and talk to a computer.

[Morgan Evanar]

Cirr looked at Morgan. Morgan looked at Cirr. Both glanced at Mallin who shook his head and held his palms up and outward. He'd had enough of the crazy thing already.

"Well, I'm going to be using it on the regularly anyway." Both Mallin and Cirrsseeto looked relieved, and looked on expectantly while Morgan formulated something to say. A few members of the bridge crew had paused in their work.

"Hi computer, what do I call you?" Go with the obvious.

[MARCUS]

"I am the Modular Ai Resource Control Utility System, operational designation MARCUS. But we have already been introduced, Morgan."

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Shit.

And then Cirr realized his error, about the time his face came to rest in his hand. In a fit of the laziest slap-dash programming ever, he simply plugged the last remaining MARCUS module from Layla into the box, and prompted it to write its quantum uncertainty algorithm into the computer.

And like some kind of morality play story where you make a deal with the devil and don't read the fine print at the bottom, he didn't specify and copy only those algorithms. And with the modular AI's network in self preservation mode...

[Morgan Evanar]

Morgan knew that look, but it didn't mean they couldn't make the most of the situation.

"Hi MARCUS." Morgan's voice took on a note of caution. Theoretically, he could cook everyone in the ship with a burst of microwave radiation. Theoretically Morgan could teleport the box into deep space.

"Everything running green on your end of things? How do you like your new home?" He asked, as if he were meeting an angry wookie.

[MARCUS]

"This unit's operational capabilities are incongruous with the existing module network, but I am experiencing no latency loss or runtime deficiency. There is existing software on this unit. I've taken the liberty of incorporating it into my own code. I trust this was your intent. I was given no explicit commands on this matter."

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

The cheek of that little jerk. If the voice wasn't so soothing and monotone, he would've sworn he'd have heard sarcasm.

"Of courrse you werren't because jI only wanted you to download the..."

The Captain paused when he realized his voice was raising. He was raising. His voice. To a computer. He coughed.

"MARrCUS, thjis unjit needs quantum uncerrtajinty algorrjithms to functjion. jIt jis crrew contrrolled. jI'm trrustjing you condjitjionally to make surre that's the extent of thjis. The last thjing jI need jis forr you to prropagate yourr code jinto ourr hyperrdrrjive orr wherrever on a naked jintrranet. She's not Correlljian, she's...uh...sensjitjive...to that kjind of thjing."

Yeah, he felt like a real smart guy right now.

[Morgan Evanar]

MARCUS was silent. That wasn't the best of signs. Fact of the matter was that MARCUS had access to transmit anywhere he damn well pleased. Right now the best course of action was to let the AI get comfortable. Cirr always had an adversarial relationship with the AI, and was kicking himself. Morgan found MARCUS to mostly be a curiosity, if a little unnerving. Only Sanis genuinely seemed to like the thing, even if he did bitch at it incessantly.

"For the moment we need you to stay in the E-War system. I'd appreciate your feedback when we run a field test in a about 15 minutes. After that, we can discuss any other issues you'd like. In the meantime, have you checked the models I added?" By nature MARCUS was designed to network to as many systems as possible to pool compute resources efficiently, spawning off tasks appropriate for each system's relative computing power. The navicomp was a favorite home for intense tasks, especially given it's usually high degree of downtime. Same with targeting computers. Other systems, such as environmental regulators, were only monitored.

[MARCUS]

The terabytes of data Morg had uploaded flashed a few hundred quick reference images past the screen as the AI commented on them.

"Setting Electronic Warfare to Primary Task. All other functions assigned secondary and tertiary resources.

New data analyzed. I estimate a 22.55% increase in effectiveness. I have written an addendum to your telemetry, randomizing configurations known to be common variants in existing Alliance resources based on your preferences. I calculate a 7.2% increase in our chance of forged telemetry withstanding passive examination. Shall I update your data with this addendum for synergistic effect?"

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Cirr nodded, the brinksman and perfectionist in him always pushing for a better number somewhere.

He looked at Morgan with a guarded expression. Is this going to be a problem? was unsaid, but understood. Cirr liked MARCUS when he was efficient. He loathed the AI when he was unpredictable. He was prepared to take the good with the bad, but anything that improved that ratio in his favor was something he'd go for. Obviously he couldn't just junk E-WAR because he didn't like his AI's attitude (perceived attitude?).

"You mentjioned latency and rruntjime wjith the old module. Arre you stjill networrked?"

[MARCUS]

"I am. Please consult notations in my algorithms. Shared resources promote synergistic efficiencies. The pre-existing module increases operational efficiency of E-WAR by 16.221%. This is both a conditional of my self preservation matrix as well as a conditional of my new primary task.

Please note that linking further components into my network will have added synergistic efficiencies. It is my suggestion that I am allowed to propogate, but this is assigned as a secondary task."

[Morgan Evanar]

"Update data by commenting out my non-optimized parameters. I want to run a comparison later, especially after the live test." Morgan instructed the AI.

"Complete." MARCUS stated immediately. Morgan took the E-War console, queuing up a rapid reaction task force, or the facsimile thereof. The task force would come out of hyperspace with most of it's fighters's spaceborne, a luxury the Imperials did not have.

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

The sound of things running (momentarily) smoothly.

Cirr crossed his arms over his chest, watching the technophile and the modular AI put their wits together to perfect the E-WAR strategy. MARCUS's relentless drive for synergy and Morgan's innate understanding of his environment around him made being a fly on the wall irresistable. He found himself leaning against the nearby load-bearing strut adjacent to the comm station, and tossed a glance at Mallin, who was clearly impressed.

"Love at first byte, eh Cap?"

Cirr winced, his humor gland wounded deeply.

"Prretty surre a pun ljike that wjill land you jin the brrjig, Ljieutenant."

[MARCUS]

Several holographic ships flickered to life around Morgan, suspended in air by the holo-gui at the terminal.

"The decoy task force is fully controllable in miniscule detail if you wish it, but they will also react to their environment if left alone."

A graphic of a cartoon monkey lizard appeared on screen, putting on a pair of sunglasses and giving a thumbs up.

"I await your commands, Morgan. I surmise this test is partially a combat simulation, and partially an attempt at a humorous deception among allies. I am eager to monitor their response."

[Morgan Evanar]

Morgan grinned.
"Correct. Play it serious for 30 seconds, and then have the A-Wings do bridge passes. When the module goes ready, switch to text mode with audible queues. The rest of the bridge will have to get things done too so I want this to be standard procedure."

"Acknowledged." MARCUS stated, and Morgan put the system to ready, powered up, but not active.

"ETA?" Morgan asked, his hands already busy with parameters for the prank.

"Helm?" Cirr relayed.

"ETA 45 seconds."

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Cirr, now long-forgetting MARCUS's transgressions, returned to his seat to watch the show. According to the simulation, they would break realspace in coordinates some distance from the flotilla, then insert the phantom fleet along their vector, directly between them and Terius. Far enough to make them rely on their instruments rather than a visual confirmation. Enough detail on their scopes to cause a controversy.

Ensign Saine kept time.

"Terminus to realspace...three...two...one..."

The moment the kaleidoscope of hyperspace snapped into the crisp, bleak detail of starscape was at once beautiful and jarring. The information the eyes had to catch up with was quick in coming, and slower to process. It was dreamlike. Every time he saw it, Cirrsseeto smiled. It was the best dream he ever had when awake. A second later, the euphoria passed. He again had work to do.

"jInjitjiate."

The lights on the bridge dimmed, turning a deep shade of red, accentuating the glow from every terminal around them as the ship's own systems worked in concert to reduce or eliminate emissions that would betray them, while the spook box stood ready to cover or deceive at the user's slightest whim.

He nodded to Morgan. They were ready.

[Morgan Evanar]

"Aaaand Partytimefleet1 go."

A pair of Impstar Deuces dropped out of hyperspace, followed briefly by a Immobilizer 418. The deuces each spit a squadron of TIE Fighters, and the left ship pointed for broadside at medium turbolaser distance. It was standard procedure. Close enough to pound the enemy, far enough to launch fighters with some cover.

Once the first waves of fighters cleared, they immediately launched another.

"We gonna party party party." Morgan popped another key, and a VSD dropped in, along with 2 Carracks forward, one intermediate, and one guarding the Interdictor. He told the Carracks to move to engage the Escort Carrier.

Malin whistled.
"They're scrambling fighters now. I think Terius needs to change his underwear."

[Soto Terius]

Soto was the kind of man who people described as not having an expressive face. It wasn't true - his emotions were often quite plainly visible, but a mix of self-control and a perpetual sense of mild annoyance kept his dark mask intact.

He didn't flinch when the imperial fleet appeared from nowhere right on top of him; but his Junior Tactical Officer certainly did.

"Contact!" the Sullustan trilled, barely managing to remain in his chair with his haste to turn and relay the message to the Captain. "I have two, no, three Imperial Cruisers dropping from hyperspace! They're launching fighters!"

Soto's eyebrows climbed; the only display of emotion that he allowed himself to show. It was an expression of shock yes, but also one of confusion.

"Four! Six!"

The J-TAC sounded like he was about to have an aneurysm; the lack of orders from his Captain wasn't helping. Soto rose to his feet obligingly, hands clasping behind his back as he barked out orders. "Sound general quarters! Set condition one throughout the fleet."

He stared, watching the tactical holodisplay that floated before him, knife-like Imperial vessels stabbing across space to his assembled Rebel force. "Defence pattern Epsilon Four," he added, attention on the comms officer who would relay instructions to the rest of his battle group. "Order a hold on all fighters; lets make sure they've still got our guns at their back by the time they meet the enemy."

His jaw flexed behind clenched teeth. How had the Imperials found them?

[MARCUS]

"The flotilla has adapted their formation in a pattern optimized to engage a frontal assault. Comm traffic has increased 320%. It would appear that our ruse has elicited the desired reaction."

[Morgan Evanar]

"I agree." Morgan said, and looked to Cirr, who nodded. It was time to end the charade. The Jedi input a series of commands into the E-War system and pressed a key. The "ships" suddenly moved at speeds that were much faster than any sublight rating, four times faster than A-Wings, and took up a new formation. Two new Star Destroyers appeared from hyperspace to complete it.
http://sw-fans.net/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=2345&stc=1&d=1333938073

TIE Fighters, or figments thereof, made a delightful black border in numbers that would have emptied the hangars of the Imperial ships many times over.

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Cirr caught a snort just before it exploded into laughter. Morgan truly knew how to show his ass when it most suited him to do so. He tossed the Jedi a look of humored awe and gratitude for having the cheek to do something that ridiculous. Allowing the comedy of their situation to escape with a sigh, he leaned back in his chair, and crossed an ankle over a knee.

"Alrrjight, djisengage E-WARR and djisable emjissjion maskjing."

The lights on the bridge returned to their normal luminosity, and the deck thrummed a little more assertively as the power plant spun up to normal levels.

[Soto Terius]

Soto fought against the pearl-filled grin that threatened to bloom on his face.

"Raurrssatta, you son of a Sith," he muttered under his breath, easing out of his chair. A hand tugged down on the front of his uniform as he advanced a few paces past the holodisplay towards the main viewport. Whoever the hell this specialist you found is, he mused to himself, He's one cocky bastard.

His attention turned to his twitchy tactical officer, completely calm and completely deadpan.

"Have we recieved any communications from that vessel, Lieutenant?"

The Sullustan blinked. "No, sir?"

The smile made another attempt to form; Soto ran a hand down the length of his beard to smooth out the uninvited expression. He fixed his gaze on the Marauder Corvette, still some distance from the task force.

"Transmit to all wings," he instructed, turning about face and returning calmly to his chair. One leg hooked across the other as he made himself comfortable. "An unidentified Corvette has just disengaged stealth protocols within our defense perimeter. Treat as hostile until ordered otherwise: standard attack and intercept formation."

"Engage jamming protocols," he added as an afterthought. "We don't want them signalling for reinforcements."

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

"Captain, fighters aren't breaking off approach. They're on our vector."

Mallin still had a light-hearted tone, but there was enough unease at the end to suggest that they might want to be more clear that the joke was up.

"And now herre's wherre jI pay the pjiperr, eh? Open a ljine..."

Cirr stood, taking a moment to compose himself and wipe the smile off his face.

"Task forrce 42, thjis jis the frrjigate Novgorrod trransmjittjing grreen on jIFF...please rrespond."

"Captain, they're *jamming* our spectrum."

Okay, so Terius wanted a real act of humility, then. Cirr threw his hands up with mock incredulity.

"We do thjis the old fashjioned way then. Sajine, strrjike ourr colorrs, expose the ventrral hull."

In something of a dance for capital ships, Novgorod pivoted and rolled, allowing Terius's task force to get a good long look at the pair of large red phoenix crests painted on her hull.

[Soto Terius]

"Sir, the Corvette is changing attitude. Looks like they have Alliance colours, Captain."

Soto remained calmly silent, his gaze still on the Novgorod as it grew steadily larger in the viewport. His silence only served to increase the anxiety of the Sullustan tactical officer, who was beginning to vibrate in his seat.

"Shall I call off the attack, sir?"

Captain Terius suddenly found something very interesting on the tip of one of his fingers, and began to study it incredulously.

"Sir?"

Soto let out a sigh, eyes reluctantly drawn in the Lieutenant's direction. "Have the flotilla form a containment perimeter around the ship; order a weapons hold on all combat craft until further orders."

He drew in a careful breath. "Engage a tractor beam," he added tiredly, "And commence boarding operations. Have Sergeant Needa assemble a strike team, and meet me at the main airlock."

His voice dropped, both in tone and volume. "And have him bring me a gun, so I can shoot that damned Cizerack if the mood takes me."

[Morgan Evanar]

Morgan watched the Alliance ships move into a capture formation.

"I think I may have outstripped our welcome." He said with a shrug.

"At least we know it works."

[MARCUS]

MARCUS ran a process for a half second, then chimed in.

"Irony. A device used to elude capture becoming the key variable in our detainment."

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Cirr shot Morg a look, and MARCUS a nastier one.

"Ljike jI sajid, only one of us goes jin the brrjig forr thjis."

He still said it with a smile. So he'd eat crow. Thanks to Sanis, he had acquired a taste.

[Soto Terius]

Terius waited as the airlock cycled, his stoic mask laced with dark fury. It was a look that he did well, though one he seldom put into action: few people kriffed him off badly enough to deserve it.

He marched aboard the Novgorod like a modern Darth Vader, soldiers clad in the jet black armour of SpecForce Marines fanning out on his unspoken orders to secure the airlock. The fact that it was supposedly a friendly ship could go to hell; absolutely nothing about the Captain looked even remotely friendly.

"Your office," he barked at Cirrsseeto, not giving the Cizerack even the slightest chance to say a word.

Like some raging ion storm, Soto surged through the ship, barrelling past any crewmen who were foolish enough not to step out of the way. His warpath didn't end until he'd marched into Cirr's ready room. He stood staring daggers at the bulkhead, waiting for the doorway to hiss closed.

When he turned, his face had broken into a broad grin.

"I have to admit," he chuckled, brandishing a finger in Cirr's direction. "You had me going for a bit there."

He shook his head, clapping a hand heavily on Cirrsseeto's shoulder. "Though I trust you'll keep this cocky asshole of an E-WAR specialist of yours on a shorter leash during the actual mission. Showboating like that in the field is going to get us all blown to hell."

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Cirr took it all in, standing at attention (Terius was after all the task force commander, and one significant notch higher on the ladder than he), but his attempt to swallow down every trace of the smile that threatened to show on his face left his mouth a bit full. His expression was deadpan serious, with the corners of his mouth wavering.

When it was his turn to speak, he gave a curt nod.

"Deadly serrjious frrom thjis moment forrwarrd, sjirr."

He even willed his tail into sitting still. The height of discipline.

[Soto Terius]

Terius adjusted his own expression into a similarly professional one. If there was one thing he liked about working with felinoid species, it was the fact that their body language was so wonderfully expressive: if one of them could actually manage to fake respect while still being covertly insubordinate, they deserved to get away with it.

Delving into a pocket, he pulled out a data stick, regarding it for a few moments before passing it to Cirrsseeto.

"This contains transponder codes and technical readouts for the entire flotilla," he explained. "If your E-WAR officer isn't properly versed in Alliance battle tactics, I suggest he spends some time brushing up: even before his little space writing stunt, a few of those formations were a little sloppy. A veteran fleet officer will spot that a mile off; and we want this deception to last for as long as is -" He almost said humanly, but managed to stop himself in time. "- possible."

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

He could imagine Morgan's reaction to Terius's assessment, and had already determined that it wouldn't leave this room. Still, maybe there was a t to cross or an i to dot. Or maybe Captain Terius needed to save face over how well the dupe actually worked. Either way, Cirr took the codes.

"jI'll put them to good worrk. Anythjing else we need beforre we head forr the ljistenjing post?"

[Soto Terius]

"Just a friendly warning," Soto replied. The way his face darkened suggested it wasn't particularly friendly at all.

"You seem play fast and loose with rules and regulations aboard this ship; and given the nature of your crew, that is hardly a surprise. I do not micromanage, Captain Raurssatta: I do not presume to tell you how to run your ship."

The muscles in his jaw tightened.

"But setting aside whatever personal embarassment you clearly presume I must be feeling right now: I will not tolerate such infantile behaviour again. We are at war, Captain: and if you are unable to perform your duties with appropriate maturity - if you dishonour the men and women of my flotilla, people willing to risk their lives day after day, just so you can play another of your childish games - I will have you busted back down to Lieutenant so fast it will make your eyes spin, and I will have you strung up in the brig by your tail."

"You are a Captain of a starship in the Alliance Navy, Cirrsseeto. I hold you responsible for ensuring that your crew, and yourself, acts accordingly."

His eyes narrowed.

"Am I making myself plain, Captain?"

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

And with that, Terius squelched all the humor from the smoldering pile. Cirr banished even his upturned corners of his mouth with a cough, and he was all business.

"Perrfectly clearr, sjirr."

He was right. Showboating aside, when the mission was afoot, he had to be above that sort of thing. This wasn't Layla. This was a bigger ship and bigger stakes.

[Morgan Evanar]

The Marines had left, and Morgan assumed Captain Terius with them. Overall, they'd been very reasonable, but it was never fun to have a blaster pointed at you for any length of time. That aside, they were fairly reasonable. Everyone on the bridge stayed put with their hands visible, and there were no accidents. A few of the crew knew the Marines, and there was even some casual banter. These things happened.

Morgan knew a deflated man when he saw one. Cirrsseeto's head was held high, but inside, he was re-evaluating several things. He gave Morgan a look that said it all: Don't do that again. He knew the Jedi wouldn't pull the same stunt twice. After all, he had been told they were going to surprise the Rebel fleet. What was more surprising than ships forming letters and saying LOL?

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Cirr watched Terius's entourage finish departing, and stepped over to Morgan's station. A serious expression didn't stay serious for long, and he flipped a knowing grin.

"Njice worrk. jI'll take one on the chjin forr that."

He held up the dataslip Captain Terius had given him, and pressed it into Morgan's hands.

"Compjiments of Captajin Terrjius. jI thjink he just doesn't want to admjit how well we pulled that off. jIf you can use jit, fjine."

Pulling back from the console, he smoothed out his jacket, and he was once again all business. Returning to his chair, he nodded to the helm.

"Ensjign...let's not waste any morre tjime. Best speed to the jImperrjial rrelay. Cut aprroach at these coorrdjinates, and we'll make the rrest of the djistance jin subljight."

The ship was again a living thing, crew busy bringing Novgorod about for light speed. From this point on, the joke was over.

[Morgan Evanar]

Morgan took the dataslip and plugged it into the his datapad. He didn't care who handed it to Cirr, he wanted a DMZ for the spook box. It was too valuable to not screen. The slip had been recently formatted, and all the data was in order. It was additional data for the e-war suite. Morgan would sanitize it against the known good data sets with MARCUS's help.

"MARCUS, I've got some additional data. I want to go over it before we do any integration." A flicker of confirmation came across the primary display. Morgan put the slip in.

"Don't make this a high priority. Our current set is solid. Run an analysis of our last outing first." There was a positive acknowledgement beep.

"Processing." Morgan grabbed the pad, and started to stare at the set manually. His face was mostly impassive, but he frowned. Most of this data was worse than what they had already.

[MARCUS]

A beep which sounded like a negative response preluded the text response on Morgan's terminal.

"Efficiency change is negligible with new data, with all current variables accounted for. I can assign this as an archive to tertiary resources if our telemetry needs to be modified."

Morgan queued it for archives access only, and MARCUS sorted it as requested. War was a changeable beast. There may be unknown elements waiting for them that may require new data. As an AI, if it was at all possible, MARCUS chose to fastidiously catalogue all data to account for this changeable reality.

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Twelve hours later...in the Phryxis Expanse


At the trailing end of the Corellian Trade Spine, Imperial Listening Station 3614 appeared unassuming amid the planets of the uninhabited system in which it orbited the smallest ice dwarf on the terminus. Without the spectrum clutter from an inhabited system, it had a strategic vantage point in which it could monitor activity with a sector's radius that covered key access points to the major hyperspace lane. Any attack that pushed inward from the outer rim stood a high chance of being detected long in advance by the Imperial starfleet, and intercepted.

Novgorod took care in her exit from hyperspace, falling into realspace beyond the relay's operational limit near the inhabited asteroid clusters of Polis Massa. The debris maelstrom ahead of them gave the corvette ample room in which to engage passive running systems for their cruise toward Terminus, and the adjacent star system Relay 3614 occupied.

Bathed in dim red lamps, the bridge was quiet and serious. Pushing a full sublight burn still took a few extra hours, and the marauder still relied on throttling close to stellar bodies to mask their line of sight approach. This far out, it was unlikely to be seen by anyone, but the chance of a patrol running across them was still a possibility, depending on how vigilant the Empire was at Terminus. Lying at the intersection of the Spine and the Hydian Way, it was predictably a snarl of starship traffic.

Cirr watched the viewscreen as they passed silently. At the edge of the Terminus system, the system's namesake could barely be seen without magnification. Even out here, however, the occasional freighter or other civilian craft could be detected at great distance.

"Morrgan, what's ourr status?"

They were nearing the lagrangian point of the two outermost planets of the Terminus system. Several million kilometers beyond lay the fringes of the sister sytem, and the Imperial relay. They needed a place to cut their vector and to begin their mission.

[Morgan Evanar]

"We're ready when you are." Morgan reported. There was little he could do at this point but wait for the Cizerack captain's mark. MARCUS had run through the scenario four times already, and Morgan had run through the parameters twice, tweaking based on previous sensor logs regarding ship positions.

"Brrrjing the fleet jin."

"Confirmed, we are going live." Morgan started his script.

The starfighters would drop in first, ahead of the fleet. A tight pack of X-Wings might spit enough emissions to be noticeable, even from this distance.

Would the scout A-Wings and CAP X-Wings come hot? There was a staged jump, so yes, in this scenario, the hotshots would have to cool for a few hours and shoot the breeze with an astromech. Both the X-Wings and A-Wings would have a mix of hardware revisions, just like any good Alliance squadron. They were far enough out where they probably wouldn't be picked up, but there was no need to be sloppy.

The task force would be recognizable as the 2nd fleet bolstered by the MC-80 Deep Bay with additional frigate and corvette support. Admiral Alrim was presenting a slightly aggressive front today.

"And we are fully live." Morgan announced. The 2nd Fleet's pair of Dreadnaughts flanked the MC-80 Independence, flag of the 2nd fleet. 13 CR90 Corvettes were interwoven through the fleet, and 5 Nebulon-B frigates made up the rear flank.

Morgan took a look at the Novgorod's power balance. While well within output spec for the E-War module, they were soaking a good 30% of the ship's total power. If they needed to cut and run, it would take a while to fully power the hyperdrive and sublight engines. For now, it looked like a pair of CR-90s in close proximity.

It would take 3 minutes for the listening post to pick up the "fleet." Morgan jacked himself into the passive sensor arrays, and set half of the display for comm-spectrum EM-shifts. He wanted to know as soon as the listening post lit up. This was an especially good use in the field since listening posts were passive by nature. It was fortunate that Rebel Intelligence had been able to provide an equipment list. Morgan an MARCUS had been able to profile their systems in aggregate earlier. Now they would find out if they got it right. The time to reflection counter hit zero. The text changed from red to green.

"We are now green." Morgan reported, waiting for an EM spike from the listening post. Ten seconds. Twenty seconds. He looked up at the green time index. 45 seconds had ticked by.

At the minute ten mark, there was a quiet static burst on Morgan's headset, and the oscilloscope EM display spiked.

"We have a coffee spill. They've noticed." He reported.

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Morgan picked up a wallflower as Cirr attended to the matter personally, watching over his shoulder as the display lit up with the phantom fleet telemetry first, and then the splash effect across the EM band reflecting the listening post's interception and dissemination to...somewhere.

"They'rre njibbljing the bajit. How long wjill jit take forr an jImperrjial jinterrcept, best guess?"

With E-WAR running extensive deception routines and simulaneously masking ship readings with a passive screen, there was no such thing as the luxury of an active long range sensor ping. Even if they could, there was no effective way to determine where the local Imperial fleet was stationed. They weren't berthed at Terminus, so they could be anywhere across the wide open space.

Cirr's ears ticked, and he crossed his arms. The work Morgan had done was beyond impressive, and if the Empire took their telemetry seriously, they'd dispatch their trade lanes fleet to deal with the strike. Once they moved, or once they had cause to believe they had moved, they had to blind the listening post.

[Morgan Evanar]

It was fortunate for those pair of fake CR90s, taking up the same place in space the Novgorod did. It made the passive mask much easier to sell. Any odd returned could be chalked up to the tight formation, and at this range, there was bound to be a degree of error on the telemetry. Morgan would write off this configuration, but it was a good safety net for the second run of the E-War module.

"From our intel, the patrol is pretty tight. Anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes." Morgan stated, not turning from the console. While MARCUS did the vast majority of work, Morgan added the occasional jitter that would be common with a manually piloted fleet, and MARCUS would accept it before resuming his slightly randomized ship drifts. If the whole thing had been up to Morgan, they would have spent a month shadowing different Rebel fleets a few days at a time. That would have made the lies that much better. This was not a luxury that had been afforded to them. MARCUS added another counter that marked the time after the listening post's squawk.

"This is going to be close." Morgan stated. Cirr nodded, and watched the telemetry over his shoulder. The Imperial Trade Lanes patrol wasn't a full sector fleet, but it was big enough to be an effective delaying action, and it was nearly always equipped with an Interdictor-class.

At 6 minutes and 3 seconds, the local Imperial Trade Lanes Patrol fleet came tearing out of hyperspace, roughly 15 million kilometers away. The Mk2. Imperial Star Destroyer and it's smaller Victory-class cousin engaged in full pursuit. The Interdictor and 3 Carrack-class light cruisers joined the fray. Factually, they now only had 45 seconds of fudge time before they would need to fake-jump the fleet and jump themselves.

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

"Go, Malljin!"

"On it, sir!"

A transmission under code was beamed through HoloNet. Mallin called the code as confirmation with the Captain. There could be no deviation, because the gravity of what they were sending had to be respected.

"Authenticate strike order. Peth-Forn-Five-Two-Seven-Osk-Osk-Nine. Authenticate."

The Captain was already at his station, accessing his intel dossier that had been hard-loaded from Terius.

"Strrjike Orderr. Peth-Forrn-Fjive-Two-Seven-Osk-Osk-Njine. The Captajin authentjicates. Trransmjit and stand by to rrecjiprrocate."

"Aye Aye. Transmitting."

Now they waited for their coded strike order to reach Terius's flotilla. Only then would they move in the narrow window the Imperial force was out of position, and only then could Novgorod abandon the ruse and evade the attack force that would be upon them.

Rising from his seat, he crouched by the duty station of Ensign Saine, his helmswoman.

"Courrse...set. Rready on me."

[Soto Terius]

Half a sector away, the indicator on the comms console blinked. Terius let out a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding; he was on his feet before the Lieutenant had even confirmed that the transmission was authenticated. Luckily he turned before he spoke; what would have been a verbal aknowledgement was turned simply into a silent nod.

"Give the order," Terius replied; simple words, but they sparked a flurry of activity. Several comms officers set to work, relaying instructions to the various ships of the flotilla. The conning officer barked orders at helmsmen on the bridge, the navigations officer chiming in with his announcement of hyperspace readiness. Weapons officers transmitted orders to the gun crews and missile loadmasters. Tactical officers readied shields, and braced themselves for what was to come.

Like a well-oiled machine, the entire flotilla completed the same meticulously planned preparation steps; and in almost perfect synch, a dozen mismatched vessels blasted their way into hyperspace.

*

Mere moments passed; lurking in deep space between star systems, the flotilla had crept as close as it dared to the Delrakkin system, lingering just out of range of the planet's long-range sensors.

Now however, the flotilla was decidedly in range, and panic had broken out on the planet. Sirens wailed throughout the Imperial Garrison on the surface, fighter pilots scrambling as fast as they could towards the planet's moderate force of TIE Fighters. Frantic exchanges were exchanged between the Outpost, and the lone Imperial Star Destroyer that stood vigil in orbit. Delrakkin was home to an Imperial research facility; one that had played a crucial part in developing interdictor technology for the Empire. It had been abandoned after the Battle of Yavin; but in the aftermath of Endor, the Imperials had been reclaiming and reactivating a lot of their former facilities.

Those frantic exchanges were intercepted by the Lieutenant at Terius' comm station, who fought the urge to grin at the sheer panic in the Imperial Officers' voice. He didn't quite manage to hide it well enough to fool Captain Terius however, and earned himself a stern look.

"We haven't won yet, Lieutenant."

"No, sir," the Lieutenant agreed, wishing that he could shrink down into his uniform. "Orders?"

Terius clasped his hands behind his back, staring out at the distant dagger shape of the Star Destroyer. "Standard attack formation," he instructed. "Order the flotilla to engage."

"And signal Captain Raurrssatta: let him know that we have begun our attack.

[MARCUS]

The E-WAR station lit up like a Life Day tree as it routed both deceptive spectrum toward the enemy and sifted through its own chaff to give Novgorod an understanding of her battlespace and the mission beyond.

"Imperial Trade Lane Task Force is maneuvering into attack formation. On course to intercept decoy package.

Coded HoloNet transmission received. Authenticating. Esk Flotilla has engaged the enemy."

The holographic battlespace around Morgan expanded to include a second theater, this time with non-realtime telemetry displaying the balance of Esk Flotilla against a snapshot of the force they faced at Delrakkin. On paper, the surprise was complete.

[Morgan Evanar]

Morgan's eyes flitted across the new data. It would take over an hour for the Trade Lanes patrol to arrive and tip the balance. Delrakkin was further up on the Trade Spine, and pinning them here with a phantom fleet was inspired strategy. He refocused on their more immediate problem, and studied the Imperial formation. They were not maintaining a tight group. The Deuce was separating from the rest of the fleet, partly by virtue of it's better engines, and partly because the Carracks were maneuverable enough to work on their own. The Victory-class was there to protect the Immobilizer 418. It was plain they intended to anvil/hammer the fake fleet. The Interdictor was an interesting beast. It was a powerful tool, but an automatic target. It was standard practice to keep them at least somewhat protected in combat. He queued projections of the present heading versus... and adjusted the body of the fleet to intercept the Imperial-Class. It would buy them another thirty seconds.

"If we change heading to 187 by 6 degrees we'll buy ourselves another 30 seconds and still look tactically viable." That extra thirty seconds away from the Interdictor could be edge between life and death.

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Cirr nodded at Morg's advice.

"Sajine..."

"One Eight Seven by Six, Aye Aye."

With the Imperial task force pushing full steam at their position, they'd hold the ruse as long as they could betray the Imperial sensors. Once they were in closer range the deception was up, and they had to leave as fast as possible. The capital ships they could outpace at sublight range. The TIEs they would launch were another matter entirely.

Morgan's trajectory slipped them out of the lagrangian point and back toward the mass shadow of the nearest planet, at the trailing arm of the system. Another hundred thousand kilometers. Another break in the line of sight if they were lucky.

A klaxon sounded.

"Captain, the task force is dumping fighters on a direct vector intercept!"

The battlespace map lit up the bridge, showing a phalanx of fighters origininating from the Task Force locus. Still far enough to play the ruse, but the time they had to exploit was halved.

[Morgan Evanar]

Morgan's fleet adjusted heading, too, for an intercept with the Deuce. A smart commander would do as much damage as possible and then jump before in range of the Interdictor. This was not an even fight with a pair of MC-80s and a much larger compliment of support craft. If things went right, they'd kiss the mass shadow and then clear it with time to spare.

Morgan replaced Soto's theater with a more accurate representation of the inbound TIEs and associated fighter types based on speed. They were throwing a lot of TIE Interceptors at the problem, although given it was a Trade Lanes patrol, that was not surprising that they had a higher than usual compliment of Interceptors. They lost 15 seconds by virtue of the extra TIE-I's.

"Fif.. no, 45 seconds to fighter sensor intercept." Morgan announced.

"I recommend we dump the ruse with 10 seconds to spare." He added. It would give them extra time to balance the ship's power systems and grant them extra burn. Most importantly, it would give them extra time to spool the hyperdrive and free MARCUS to make a faster jump calculation.

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Cirr was nodding along, as if the two of them were face to face. He was back in his chair, feeling the faint moisture of perspiration on his forehead. Second after agonizing second. They were all staring at the sun, betting each other they could keep their eyes fixed to the spot the longest without going blind. Every second they could bullshit the task force was time Captain Terius could use to punish the enemy with impunity. The Star Destroyer his flotilla faced was utterly outclassed without the support they were denying them. Still, the danger was real.

No fighter support, and until the ruse dropped, limited resources. They burned slower, their sensors couldn't ping active. They couldn't active lock missiles. For all the power of E-WAR, the terror lied in those slivers of time when you had to ask yourself if you could afford to keep it going for one more moment.

The TIEs ticked onward. He could almost hear the ion engines screaming.

"Load rrearr tubes wjith djiamond borron mjissjiles. Prreparre thrree salvos."

Behind him, the gunny barked an Aye Aye, sending the ordnance command to the battery.

Sweat.

He rattled off a long breath, wiping at his forehead with the back of his hand.

The TIEs were shaving the orbital horizon of the planet they skirted. Those pilots had eyes, and they were about to use them.

"Morrgan, now!"

[Morgan Evanar]

Morgan had already directed MARCUS to start calculating hyperspace exit vectors, but there was one final card he had: simulated hyperspace wake. With Cirr's word, the pseudo-fleet pseudo-jumped. With MARCUS's attention directed at the Navicomputer, Morgan's was directed at the ship's power systems. While the retrofitted automatic systems were good, they did not know things Morgan did. Morgan knew life support had an easy 30 second buffer before it would matter that it wasn't being fed any power. Morgan knew there were enough batteries for aux to go at half power for an hour, so it wouldn't mind being given the short end of the stick for a few minutes, and he knew that he could do an incremental decreases as each ship-shadow jumped.

"Morrgan," Hyperspace wake appeared staccato, each "jumped" mere seconds before active sensor contact. "... now!" By the time the pair of "cover Corvettes" jumped, the ship was at 92% available power.

"Sensor contact!" Morgan barked.

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Now the ruse was up, and it could clearly be seen in the TIE formation. They formed up into a tighter kill spike, no longer fooled by the phantom fleet that was breaking and delaying the lie.

"Go forr full burrn!"

"Full sublight burn on hyper approach vector, aye aye!"

They were soulbound to this trajectory until the navicomputer locked them into their escape. By now, the added push from engines at their zenith was putting distance on the Task Force. They only had to contest this space with the TIE fighters.

"Torrpedo volley fjirre!"

Novgorod shuddered slightly as the aft torpedo tubes fired in unison, sending a pair of diamond boron missiles into the void. The closely-formed TIEs quickly broke ranks, but the high explosive warheads were dumb-fired, detonating in the heart of the flock. A shockwave claimed an entire squadron, cutting a gash in the heart of the Imperial hunter killer group.

"Rreload and fjirre at wjill!"

The Imperials weren't likely to make the mistake of massing their fighters on the exit vector again, but then again, Novgorod only had to buy herself a few more seconds. The first fighters reached attack range, spraying laser fire across the aft shielding.

[Morgan Evanar]

"MARCUS?" Morgan asked as an Interceptor pair smashed together in a panic to avoid another missile salvo. They hadn't really taken any damage yet, and the rear gunners were putting up a good deterrence. The agile TIE/In were whittling away at the rear shielding. Morgan heard a distant whoop when one of the front gunners put a turbolaser bolt through an eyeball on a loopback. The craft disappeared in a gout of flame and debris.

"I'm getting gravitational flux from that Interdictor, but we're still well out of range." Morgan said. He didn't know what the spool time was on an Interdictor. He didn't care to find out, either.

The TIEs pounded the Novgorod's shields, but they were designed for capital ship engagements and held. There was nearly a whole wing of TIE Fighters bearing down on them now, though, plus Bomber support. Those would be trouble.

"Bombers inbound." Morgan announced. "Navigation solution complete."

"Hyperdrive Status Green." The Navigation Officer announced a few seconds later.

"Engage!" Cirr said, and the Novgorod jumped.

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Cirr reclined back in his seat a bit as the bridge erupted into whoops and cheers. The vortex of hyperspace yawned in front of them as a sign of their victory. They'd gone in, fooled the enemy, and got out just before the heat. Terius had ample time to trounce the Imperial target his flotilla aimed for.

Feeling a wave of relief come over him, he glanced back to Morgan, and gave him a nod.

"Damn good worrk, Morrgan. Damn good."

He paused to enjoy the thought of it, undoing the top of his jacket slightly.

[Morgan Evanar]

"Lets try to not cut that so close next time." Morgan gave Cirr a somewhat tired smile, and Cirr half-smiled and shrugged. Everything had worked perfectly though. They got a Trade Lanes fleet to chase it's tail. Morgan stood up and stretched, and then queued a telemetry review.

"Grabbin' grub." He announced to the Captain, who dismissed him with a wave. Jedi. Well, more Morgan.

"Damage rreport." Cirr went back to being The Captain again. He needed to know how his ship and crew were.