9.102 - Wolves in Sheep Clothing: What's for Dinner?

[Kyran O'Hurn]

Kyran looked around the room again before his eyes settled back on the holovid being displayed a few feet in front of him. It wasn't what he wanted to be doing, watching the vid, but his orders were essentially to sit tight upon arrival and wait to be contacted. By who, and when, he had no idea. The whole thing was a mystery to him, one he wanted answers about.

Seventy-two hours earlier he had been on his belly a long range sniper rifle tucked to his shoulder waiting for an Imperial Colonel to make the unknown mistake of stepping out of command centre for the night. That was until seventy-one hours and fifty-five minutes ago when Kyran's earpiece buzzed to life with the voice of his comm expert Andrei Ivanov.

"Grey Wolf, Red Wolf. Message from The Moon. Hunt called off. Pack to return to den immediately, more info on your arrival."

Even though it was highly unlikely that their comm gear would be hacked, Kyran and his team still communicated in code. And Ivanov had just told him to pack up and get back to the YT-1930 that they used as their base of operations, and it sounded like it needed to be quick.

"The Moon" also known as the Alliance Special Operations Command liaison didn't usually call direct. Usually it was just a list of targets, and they let the Kyran and the rest of the Wolfpack figure out how best and when to take care of each of the targets.

Ky had pulled his gear together and gotten back to the ship as quickly as possible, given that he was moving through Imperial controlled territory. On his arrival he had read the rest of the message. Not that there had been much more. His orders, make his way to Dunari's Rest in the Mayagil sector. There'd be a reservation waiting for him at the resort under the name Grey, and then he was to wait to be contacted.

And so he did. And now he was waiting. Kyran didn't mind waiting when he knew why he was waiting. But now he was waiting, and all he knew was that it was important enough for the Alliance to pull his team off another operation.
"This better be worth it." He said to himself in the empty room. Then with a sigh he gave up thinking about something he had no information about and went back to watching the vid in front of him.

[Jane Starborn]

Dunari's Rest, space station. Constructed by GrayMor Engineering Corporation and used as a waypoint for Allied shipments during the Battle of Hoth. One thousand fifty-three point three meters long, six hundred and sixty-five point eight meters wide, and six hundred nineteen point four meters tall. Owned by Dunari (of course), contains casino and can accommodate up to fifteen thousand guests at any point in time. Popular with legitimate and illegitimate traders alike.

Agent Starborn walked down the carpeted hallway to the room that had been reserved under the name Grey. The red-head behind her was following nonchalantly, but she knew that Captain Thals, HRD, was missing nothing as she walked. Reaching the correct door Jane knocked twice, paused, then inserted her key card into the door.

The lock flashed green and she opened it up. She was carrying a holdout blaster in her jacket, but she had to trust that the operative on the other side of the door wasn't going to be jumpy enough to plug her full of energy bolts before they could make introductions.

O'Hurn, Kyran. Special Operations with the team known within SpecOps as The Wolfpack. Sniper. Not usually the jumpy sort. Jane walked inside with Eluna on her heels, both wearing casual pants, boots, and jackets over their plain shirts. They could blend in to just about any situation other than a black tie gala, and they stopped just inside the room.

O'Hurn looked up, and Jane said, "I am Agent Starborn." He looked just like the picture in his file, although maybe a little thinner in the face. Probably the lighting. "What I am about to tell you, Sergeant O'Hurn, is classified above Top Secret."

She looked to Thals, who was already re-sweeping the room for listening devices or errant signals, and then approached the man, sitting across from him on the second bed.

[Eluna Thals]

What appeared to be a casual lookabout was anything but. Eluna's innate spectrum detection systems made certain that there weren't any active electronic eavesdropping devices active within their perimeter. Only when she was certain did she pause, standing casually beside Starborn.

"We're clean."

[Kyran O'Hurn]

Kyran hadn't really expected the two women to just walk into the room unannounced, but as soon as he heard 'Agent' it made a bit more sense. Alliance Intelligence he presumed.

He looked curiously at the red-head who had trailed behind the first woman. Something was a little odd about her, but he couldn't put his finger on it.

Turning back to Agent Starborn he looked at her for long moment before finally speaking.

"Ma'am, I'm classified above top secret, in fact me and my team don't exist to most people. Which is probably why I'm here."

[Jane Starborn]

Jane nodded assent, finding herself still trying to figure out how to word her next few sentences. On the flight through the Mayagil sector she'd come up with any number of little speeches, but in the end it seemed better just to come straight to the point. O'Hurn seemed like a man who had little patience for dicking around.

She handed over a datapad with enough information on it to verify her and Thals' existence (coded to delete such information should the wrong input be typed in). "Apologies for the short notice. We didn't have time to come up with code names or phrases, or any other 'spook' stuff." Her eyes twinkled for a moment but she quickly moved on.

"Intel is investigating the possibility of a ...traitor high within the Alliance Navy. We need to verify his existence quickly and cleanly, without alarming him that we might be on to him. You and your Wolfpack came up as just the ones to get the job done."

Using an Intel team would simpler, perhaps, keeping it in house and ones cards close to the chest. However, if an Intel team was discovered in the middle of the mission and Dan was or was not a traitor, it would be very hard to disavow knowledge of such an undertaking. The Wolfpack, for all it's deadly accuracy and ...whatever it was it did, was still SpecOps. Mercenaries and other unstable types were much easier to orphan when a mission went belly up, as distasteful as that might be.

[Eluna Thals]

There was little use in expressing her misgivings, because they were obvious ones. If their intelligence was correct and General Dan was a Sith Lord, their margin for unlocking evidence to confirm this would be razor thin.

Starborn had briefed her on the Wolfpack's dossier, or what little could be cleared as need-to-know. They didn't want for capability, but this mission was sure to be unlike any they'd ever taken on.

[Kyran O'Hurn]

"Well I appreciate that Command has confidence in my team, but what your talking about doesn't sound like it's really in our list of specialties. We're a combat unit, not spooks who try and dig up dirt on someone."

He paused for a moment.

"With respect of course." He added.

Kyran still wasn't sure why he was there. If Intel wanted something blown up, someone killed or captured, sure that was something he could do.

[Jane Starborn]

The holovid was still playing, some nature special with a predator stalking it's prey. Jane ignored it, though a part of her brain was busy cataloging and storing the information. "I understand your misgivings, but this is not an ordinary fact finding mission.

"I trust you know what Jedi are." After Sergeant O'Hurn nodded, she continued, "We have reason to believe that a General in the Navy is a Sith. The ...evil counterpart to the Jedi. As Palpatine was, and his lieutenant Darth Vader." Jane hoped that he wasn't about to roll his eyes and complain they were sending him after a children's fairy tale.

She kept going, getting it all out before giving either of the others in the room a chance to talk. "A simple blood test is sufficient to tell whether the man has Force ability or not. The trick, and where your team comes in, is getting a blood sample straight from the man without giving him a chance to submit a 'clean' version. He has reason to believe that Intel may be onto him, so time is of the essence."

Jane handed over a second datapad, with all the relevant information on General Dan Thrule. "Your target."

[Kyran O'Hurn]

Kyran looked at the datapad she had just handed him.

"You're joking right? Some sort of Intel ploy to test my loyalty now that I get to operate outside the lines isn't it?"

He studied the look on Jane's face for a long minute before looking over at Eluna.

"You're not joking are you?" His voice was a little more serious now.

Jane shook her head to indicate that she was not joking at all.

"So you want us to somehow get a hold of a pure blood sample from one of the most senior Generals in the entire Alliance, without him knowing we are doing it, so you can find out if he's a darksider?"

It was a rhetorical question, and he didn't pause long enough to let her answer it, but it was long enough for him to scan some more of the file in his hand.

"Well he's going to notice one of us hanging out in his washroom while he shaves just waiting for him to nick himself, so that's not going to work."

[Eluna Thals]

"Joking aside, attempting this in a discrete setting might be highly imprudent. If our theory is correct, privacy would allow him to dispense with his ruse, and deal with a perceived threat with maximum force."

She raised an eyebrow slightly.

"That would be unwise."

[Kyran O'Hurn]

Kyran looked at Eluna and arched an eyebrow at her comment. "She's a serious one." He thought to himself.

"Okay so let me see if I have this right."

He paused for a moment.

"You want my team, which is down a man at the moment by the way, to secure a blood sample from a senior General within the Alliance. But we have to do that without him knowing that we're doing it. And if that isn't hard enough already, your telling me that he's a serious force user.

That sums it up?"

Jane nodded.

"Fun..." The statement was dripping with sarcasm.

He stopped for a moment and ran the scenario through his mind a couple of times and a number of questions came to the for.

"Does Intel have a plan already in place, or is that what we're here to do? Cause if so, my first question is whether or not we have to infiltrate the fleet?"

[Jane Starborn]

Jane wasn't comfortable with just how 'flying by the seat of their pants' Intel was being with this situation. There simply wasn't time to plan an elaborate and fool proof infiltration - the longer Dan was out there knowing that they knew what Zem had told them, the longer he had to prepare whatever it was he was going to do next.

If, of course, any of it was true in the first place.

She kept all this to herself, however. "We are hoping," wrong word? too late, keep going, "that your team will be able to join the fleet just as you are. An elite Special Forces team needing a ride between point Aurek and point Besh. However, retrieving a sample from the General will be difficult, no matter how you do it.

"What I'm trying to say is," she smiled tightly, "We are open to suggestions."

[Kyran O'Hurn]

Kyran took a few moments to think about the "plan" that he had just been presented from the Intel operative.

"I think us announcing ourselves in any way is likely to raise more red flags than it's worth. As far as regular military channels are considered we don't exist anymore. If the General is the enemy, he's likely to want to do some research on anyone who is coming on board any of his vessels. He does that, he won't find anything, which is likely to make him suspicious.

No, I think the fleet is a bad idea. Escape and evasion options are very limited if something goes wrong and we have to bolt quickly. We need to get him on the ground, but someplace where he feels safe enough to travel with a limited security detail, if one at all."

Ky rubbed his over his chin a couple of times, the wheels in his head turning. He was starting to see something that might work, but the location was key, and then he remembered an intelligence flash that had come through when they were on their last mission. There had been so many of them to go over on his way to this meeting that he had only glanced at it briefly to determine if it was pertinent to his operations, and at the time he decided it wasn't, but now he wasn't so sure...

"We've been off the grid on an op, but on my way here I was trying to catch up on intel flashes. Wasn't there something about a series of Imperial attacks on Alliance planets recently?"

[Jane Starborn]

"Yes, what appears to have been four feints to draw out Fourth Fleet, and then an attack on Sullust and it's shipyards. The initial attacks were on Fondor, Sluis Van, Clak-Dor, and the Sululluub asteroid belt." Jane paused. "The General was involved in the defense of Sullust."

[Eluna Thals]

Eluna could see where this was going.

"Sullust's defense does lie within his new-found authority as commander of the Fourth Fleet. It wouldn't be difficult to arrange contact planetside."

Of course, they couldn't simply wait for this to happen. They needed a catalyst.

[Kyran O'Hurn]

Kyran could see that Eluna had already caught on to what he was thinking, at least partially. He looked at her and shook his head just slightly.

"I don't think Sullust is the right location. Not with it being the launching point for the entire Fourth Fleet. But I think we're on the same page."

He looked over at Jane. She had a good poker face, and he couldn't tell if she had caught onto what he was thinking or not, so rather then guess he decided to spell it out.

"We need to get him on the surface someplace where the Alliance presence is low enough that it's plausible for Imperial agents to operate and attack.

Clak'Dor would be my first choice. We're already close and the rest of the fleet is a ways away.

Then we launch a false flag op. Two teams, the first team would operate as Imperials and hit the General when he's on the surface, his convoy maybe. The goal would be to wound, not to kill, even just a scratch would do.

Then we have a couple operatives move in under the cover of being medics, treat the wounded General, while also happening to get a blood on a bandage or wipe, and he's none the wiser."

He paused for a moment.

"Would have to happen soon so we can still use the attack as something to draw him to whatever planet we choose. My team has some of the equipment we'd need, but going to need Intel's help with some things too."

He looked at Jane.

"Assuming you agree with the plan of course."

[Jane Starborn]

"Yes," she nodded, "Of course. The broad strokes sound solid, as long as you're confident your team can pull this off."

His expression never changed. Yes, he was confident. Jane nodded again. "Get me a list of what you'll need and I'll see to it it's fulfilled."

[Kyran O'Hurn]

Ky paused for a moment. He already knew basically what he needed, but he ran the plan through his mind once more to make sure he wasn't missing anything. At least anything big, the small stuff was usually easy to get if you forgot, but the big stuff... Not so much.

"I have to get with my team and go through our inventory. Some of the items we can go shopping for ourselves. But there are 3 things. Make sure that customs on Clak'Dor leave my ship alone. Two. We need at least 2 more bodies, maybe three. And at least one of them should be local. We need someone who knows the best place to make a hit."

He paused for a moment. The last part was really the only one that mattered. Without it, there was no mission.

"...and three. You have to get Dan there."