One Man's Trash

[Kiera Sontebren]

The identicard slid through the reader with almost no sound, though the beep afterwards was nearly inaudible through all the birdsong.

"You want to know what comes with songbirds?" she asked nobody in particular as she entered and scraped the bottom of her boots on a particularly rustic looking mat. "Songbird shit. That's what comes with songbirds."

Krant was beautiful and largely unspoiled. The Bothans, for their bluster and posturing, knew how to take care of their worlds. Ghost Base was a welcome place for a rest between missions and assignments for members of Alliance Research and Development.

"Ah, Sontebren," the agent watching the door looked out of the small inlet in which there had been placed a caf machine and a small conservator. She remembered him. His name was Fyor Diddodai, and he'd asked her out to a night in Le'Roche and she'd turned him down; but she was happy to see that he was at least attempting to remain cordial with her. If he asked her again she might agree. Placing a mug of the stimulant on the counter top, he pulled out a datatab and handed it to her.

Signing the log with a stylus, she grabbed the mug and took a long drink.

"Looks like you're wanted down in conference room A113. Corporate Sector salvaging mission," he said, raising his eyebrows and grimacing. Kiera smiled wanly and walked down toward the conference room in question.

"Can't have the glamorous missions all the time," she said, waving to him.

[Alexander Tur'enne]

Xander hated Krant.

Well okay, that was maybe a little harsh. It was more accurate to say that Krant was wigging him out something fierce. It wasn't like he was from Coruscant or anything, but he was a city boy from Corellia, and all this untamed woodland wilderness was making him a little nervous. People kept trying to be helpful, pointing out that if tribes of Wookiees were safe living in the forests, he'd be totally fine: but Wookiees were strong enough to tear the arms of things, and could leap up into the trees if anything bad came along. When it came to feats of evasive agility, Xander was still roughly on a par with a Gungan.

Of course, what he lacked in gymnastics he made up in other areas. People always used to complain that they never needed to use the mathematics they learned in school as part of their daily lives, and Xander relished in proving them wrong. A casual flick of his wrist tossed the screwed up sandwich wrapper on a two-wall rebound trajectory into a waiting trash basket: just the latest act in a life lived as a fanboy love letter to geometry.

The moment of smug self-adulation at his success quickly subsided, and with a sigh he dug his hands into his pockets. The last few years had turned his life into something pretty damned weird: he'd left his nice comfy five-figure salary on Corellia, and had been dragged off to play political activist with his annoying kid sister. And now, she was off being a super-commando mega spy or something, and he was stuck kicking about from assignment to assignment while the Alliance tried to find something he'd actually be useful at.

At least R&D was in his wheelhouse of preference. He grunted and, idly sizing up the corridor with a casual glance, set off on the thirty-two-and-a-half paces that it would take to bring him to Conference Room A113.

[Kiera Sontebren]

There was a small group of agents already inside the conference room, and a few outside as well. All told, there seemed to be twenty agents gathered.

Keira's eyebrows rose. Normally salvage missions didn't have this many people working at once. As she drew closer, she heard a couple others mentioning this themselves. Especially agents from Special Operations, if she wasn't mistaking the patches on a couple men's arms.

"Move along, move along, we have a briefing to start," a man's voice cut through the low chatter, and the group slowly filtered into the conference room. Humans dominated the members of this briefing, but there were two Bothans, a Durwi, a Verpine, and two twi'leks, one a tattooed male that was surprisingly not ugly, and the other a female with dark green skin. A man with graying hair and a mustache, and an old Gossam with a cane moved to the head of the conference table while the assembled agents and operatives took their seats.

Of the humans around, most she knew, save for a couple newer faces. One of them sat next to her. She spared him a grin and a friendly nod as unnoticeable sliding covers in the table opened and revealed datapads and styli.

[Tell Cho]

"This is Captain Cho, a recent defector from the Corporate Sector Authority. Along with information about logistics routes and supply lines, he has also given us the locations of several supply depots and locations of interest to the Alliance. I'll let him handle the rest."

The man with the moustache stepped away, and Cho pressed a button on the conference table, activating the holoprojector. With a soft whine and then an equally soft hum, a display of a planetary system blinked into sight. The hologram zoomed in, revealing a large space station, with a large red sphere around it, with a single clear corridor running through the sphere to the station.

"This is one of several scrapyards the Corporate Sector Authority operates. Its official designation is 120-87. It is notable for being the point from which starships are sent to refurbishing yards or are scrapped for parts and metal. Ships here can wait for months, or years, before they are processed, based on a cost-benefit analysis done by algorithm and the command of officers in the Corporate Sector fleet. The red sphere designates the estimated area covered by starships awaiting processing. Ships in this zone can range from needing superficial changes or little work done to make them serviceable, to being all but skeletons."

Cho paused, and looked over the assembled personnel.

"We do not know exactly what ships are currently docked there, nor those ships' conditions. But there is a plan to make this yard a constant supply of Alliance ships and parts.

"Before I resigned my position, the Corporate Sector was brought under more direct control by the Galactic Empire. Part of the negotiations included the addition of a Sector Fleet, and additional Imperial ships to bolster the Corporate Sector's own in patrolling its hyperlanes and policing its space. The Corporate Sector Authority has planned to refurbish and decommission many of its older ships to make running these new additions less costly. Many of the ships in yards such as this will be given scrapping or destruction orders. This requires reorganization, and there is an opening for them to misplace many of these ships."

The holographic display zoomed to encapsulate the station.

"Groups of labourers and droids are sent to these yards to prepare and fly these ships to their end destinations and to catalogue the parts the ships have that may be used for refurbishing and modifying other ships. Most of these labourers are indentured, serving out sentences mostly to pay off debts. This will be our opening. A transport, which has the credentials necessary to take us into the yard, will take teams to ships designated for removal. Another group will enter the station, and input several changes in the relays and broadcast equipment, which will alert the Alliance when new ships are sent there, and which ships are slated for recommissioning and modification and which ships are to be destroyed."

The Gossam stopped and zoomed the display out to show the station and the red sphere once more.

"Any questions thus far?" he asked, his tone was curt, as though expecting none.

[Vitra Karr]

The silver 'threads' in her dark irises floated to the surface, resolving into a microscopic net that eased the strain of the bright lights and various holo-devices being employed in the conference room. It was disconcertingly bright to the Hapan woman, though it eased somewhat when the Gossam brought up the holo-projection of the scrapyard. Their intended target.

Fingers toyed idly with the old ID tags (http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/set?id=73874561) of Tad's that she still wore, while her attention flicked from the presentation to the datapad in front of her. There were nearly twenty people gathered, all of them wearing Alliance patches or identicards clipped to their clothing. The latter of which she had as well, though hers marked her as the lone mercenary amidst the horde of enlisted.

Vitra arched a brow at the scope of the mission, though a hint of a smile played about the corners of her lips. The Alliance certainly wasn't lacking in pilots, or even former Imperial pilots. But, she mused, they likely didn't have one with her particular set of skills and experience. Regardless of whatever the reason actually was, they had called, and she had answered.

Leaning forward, Vi tapped the stylus on the datapad in front of her before before lifting her gaze to the Gossam as he asked if there were any questions. She sat up straight and spoke as his gaze passed over her.

"You mentioned that we don't know exactly what's there, but do we have a rough idea or estimate, perhaps? It would be helpful to have some notion of what we'll have to maneuver around to get through that corridor. Last time I was there it wasn't a straight, unobstructed line. Also, what kind of transport are we going to be using?" she said, stylus poised to take notes on his response.

[Tell Cho]

"And what about station defenses?" asked an older man, with a SpecOps patch on his arm. "There has to be some security. Will we be relying on the credentials and codes to get us through?"

The Gossam fixed both speakers briefly with a gimlet eye, before speaking.

"I do not know when you were last there," he said, answering the woman's question first, "but the avenues to stations within the Corporate Sector scrapyards are not ad-hoc. There will be no need for skilled manoeuvring, as the ships that come to and exit the scrapyards are mainly piloted by droids or brain units, and these cannot handle the extreme difficulty of flying through an unmaintained corridor."

The hologram zoomed in again, this time starting at the edge of the red sphere surrounding the station.

"In truth, there are multiple lanes through which ships can pass through the scrap field. These primarily follow the vertical and horizontal axes of the stations, and are clear of debris, and these lanes turn a complete sphere of debris into manageable quadrants. The large ships and their parts take up two to three quadrants, and shuttles and random small derelicts take up one to two. We will only be using one lane, following the procedure for leaving or removing ships to lower the chances of our operation being noticed."

The hologram zoomed out to encompass the station and sphere in their entirety, before the Gossam, with a few deft touches of the panel in front of him, brought up a diagram of an Etti-class transport (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Etti-class_light_transport).

"We will be using a modified version of this ship, which is common and often utilised for just such procedures in Corporate Sector space. The twenty of you will act as crew, while an additional forty organic team members and additional droids will make use of the cargo hold."

He nodded to the Special Operations agent and brought up a more detailed hologram of the station.

"The station is based on the frame of a Golan-II defense platform. Most of its functions are automated, and there are usually twelve to fifteen organic controllers overseeing the main droid force. We do not foresee the need for combat; most procedures are ignored if not done perfunctorily. In the case of conflict, all personnel outside of the station and transport are to continue their missions and escape as soon as possible. Station defenses are not to be underestimated, and there are at most two picket ships assigned to the fields. Our greatest safety lies in an efficient process and no undue disturbances.

Are there any other questions before teams are assigned?"