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| - When the rest of the platoon, clad in their brand-new armor, marched back in, I led them once again in the same warm-up exercises we had done before. For them, at least, this proved to be much more of a workout than they expected, with the weight of the armor on their bodies and the negligible, but noticeable, limitation of their mobility. When the routines were complete, several of the less-experienced troopers were clutching at stitches in their chests, sides, or backs, while others were nursing small muscle kinks. “I never said wearing this gear would be easy,” I said briskly as everyone took a seat. “Hut-ut, keep that helmet on, Private Utides.” The trooper, who had just begun to extract his head from the bucket, hastily plopped it back into place. “You're going to have to get used to the heft and encumbrance of these suits if they're to do you any good in battle. To that end, from now on until we rendezvous with Battleaxe, you're to remain fully armored at all times—except while eating and sleeping. I'm not that mean.” A couple of soldiers in the back row emitted low groans, but I didn't have the gumption or the energy to do anything about it. Thankfully, the helmeted stares of some of the noncoms was enough to make them fall into line. “One more thing before we continue training,” I began, taking a seat in front of the assembly and pointing to my face. “Don't let this blindfold fool you; I can see just about everything you're doing. Including you, Private Axeli.” The private, who had been adjusting the fit of his codpiece, visibly jumped. Meanwhile, I pulled a small comlink from a pocket, flicked it to a preset frequency, and began speaking. “Lieutenant, I think it's time we went on another run. If you would be so kind...” — — — As I led the troopers out into the companionway several minutes later, Lieutenants Dan'kre and Ibratu'na took over, the former leading and the latter bringing up the rear as the formation began to lap the warship once again. Since I was still very much on the mend, I went back to my quarters to rest up for the next day's activities, trusting in the Bothan intelligence officer's ability to think of something for the platoon to do. On that first day aboard Vibrosword, Silas had told me that he still kept up on his physical training, despite spending most of his duty hours sitting at desks or computer terminals. Thus, he was quite able to pace the Army nerfs to their limits, and then some, and I think he was quite happy to get back into the ethos of the Marine Corps. Meanwhile, I busied myself with reviewing his revisions of the squads' tactical plans for the boarding action itself, extinguishing my sleeping area's lights and removing the blindfold so I could actually see them (though they were still healing, I did have limited use of my eyes). Since I'd never gotten the chance to review them myself, Silas had taken the thoughtful measure of appending his revisions as notes, at least on the copies he had given me. After skimming the three datapads, I decided that he'd been correct in his overall assessment, though I thought I could detect Sergeant Dar's handiwork in the circuitous plan. My initial hope had been to assign one squad to each of the different routes, so that all three batches of thirteen soldiers would be able to specialize in one of them to a high degree of precision. After looking over the Bothan's appendices, however, I realized that this idea would have been a mistake; it was better to have all the troops memorizing all the possible plans than to have such ingrained specializations. “Adaptation” was the rule here, and I'd briefly forgotten it. The simple fact was that the lieutenant was much more familiar with the layouts of Interdictor-class cruisers than I was, possibly even more aware than some of the Sith crewers we would encounter. These vessels had, after all, started out as the next generation of Republic ships-of-the-line, intended to bridge the gap between the smaller Hammerhead-class cruisers and Foray-class frigates, and the much larger Centurion-class battlecruisers and Inexpugnable-class command ships. I found myself wishing that one of the latter vessels had survived the initial weeks of the war. An Inexpugnable would certainly have gone a long way toward evening the odds, but I wouldn't have said no to a Centurion, particularly Stalwart Defender. Still, one could only play the sabacc cards they'd been dealt, not the ones they'd hoped to get. After about an hour of poring over the plans that my unit had drawn up, I finally laid back on my rack and drifted off to sleep. I was grateful for the knowledge that, within the healing trance that Master Kavar had taught me, no dreams would trouble my repose. — — — I came out of the trance at precisely the moment I'd set, 0900 hours the next day. Feeling significantly better, though still not at full battle readiness (which wouldn't be for another few days yet), I exited my quarters just in time to watch the boarding party run past at a brisk trot, their armor rattling softly as their booted feet beat a cadence across the deck. Though still blindfolded, I caught the cocky nod that the helmeted Bothan shot me as he brought up the rear of the formation, which I returned with a grin of my own. Drawing out my comlink, I flipped it over to his bucket's comm frequency. “Enjoying your morning jog, Silas?” “Absolutely, Captain,” his somewhat distorted voice replied after the group had rounded a bend. “We're closing in on nine laps, then one more before I take them back to the lander for another round of practice.” I smiled at that. Yes, they would have to have another few goes at rapid entry and exit now that they were fully armored. “Would it be safe to assume that the rest of the hangar bay will be empty while the platoon has their fun?” “Pretty much, ma'am,” the lieutenant replied with a verbal shrug. “The techs tend to want to get as far away from us as possible, though I don't see why; we're such a lovable bunch. Why do you ask?” “Oh, no reason,” I said, putting just enough fake innocence into my voice for Silas to understand that there was, in fact, a very good reason, one that he would love. “Carry on, Lieutenant.” “You got it, ma'am!” I deactivated the device and shoved it back into my arm pocket, then set off at a casual pace toward the ship's armory. When I got there the ensign in charge, a Chagrian I'd first met the day before when I'd fetched the platoon's worth of Marine assault armor, saluted smartly. “What'll it be for today, ma'am?” he asked lightly once we'd traded salutes. “I just finished working up a shoulder-mounted turbolaser, and I gotta say, it's a real beauty!” I laughed. “Jeenat, assuming a turbolaser could even be chopped down so that it would fit within the average corridor, anyone who fired it would get thrown back fifty meters!” “Aw, nuts,” he replied in mock disappointment, punching the air. “I knew there was a catch. So yeah, what can I get you?” “Three flashbangs and a gas grenade,” I said, letting a satisfied smirk creep onto my face. “And not the practice ones, either.” Checking active ordnance out of a warship's armory isn't like buying trinkets at some tourist-trap gift shop, or even buying munitions from a planetside weapons merchant. After signing a dataform and providing a thumbprint signature after drafting a hardcopy explanation of what purpose the grenades were for, the ensign handed over the requested merchandise. This was to make sure that no unauthorized weapons made their way to critical areas for any number of reasons, ranging from basic safety precautions to the desire to head off possible mutinies or mass defections. Given all that had happened thus far in the war against Darth Revan's empire, this was an understandable measure, and it wasn't much of an intrusion. I took the belt of grenades, which had been tucked into pouches, put them on, and strode casually toward Vibrosword's hangar deck. — — — As the intelligence officer had indicated, when I got to the set of hatchways that led to the small docking bay, it was to find that only the auras of the Bothan and Ibratu'na's platoon were present. Hangars aboard Hammerhead-class cruisers were small, with only enough space to hold a pair of orbital shuttles or, in a pinch, a quartet of Aurek fighters. Since the boarding party would be staging from Vibrosword, it had been cleared of all craft to make way for the Jarhead-class lander, which took up a very large footprint. When I'd first transferred over from Zapdash, it was with such a relief to be aboard a larger vessel that I hadn't even noticed the large, boxy dropship. Of course, in all fairness, I had been rather preoccupied at the time. Foray-class frigates, on the other hand, possessed what amounted to little more than a glorified docking collar nestled into a niche in the hull, which was barely enough to support their solitary shuttlepods. Taking up station against the bulkhead between the two entrances, I withdrew the grenades one by one from their pouches and placed them in a line on the deck before me. Relaxing into the Force, I used it to pull the arming pins from each and, holding the detonators so they wouldn't go off until the right moment, lifted them into the air. I extended my awareness into the bay to get a sense of what the troopers were up to; sensing that they were just about to go through another quick exit scenario, I tapped the actuator on the nearest hatchway, which hissed open. Letting the fuses go, I hurled the entire lot through the portal and amongst the rapidly-debarking platoon, then placed my hands over my ears and closed my eyes tightly beneath the blindfold. True to their nature, the flashbangs went off with an earsplitting pow! and even through the cloth and my closed lids, I could still see the flash reflected off the bulkhead on the other side of the corridor. The gas grenade, however, made no noise, save for a low hiss, and even as the smoke from the former ordnance dissipated, it was replaced with a noxious assortment of chemical irritants designed to temporarily blind its victims and distract them with an incredibly powerful itching sensation. Releasing my ears and letting my lids flutter, I strode into the bay as the platoon recovered from the unexpected nature of the attack and fell into line. Most of them seemed taken aback, but not so much that they were thrown off-balance, and inwardly I admired them for that. A couple of soldiers, however, were still shaken, but at least none of them had started twitching with the telltale signs of gas exposure. “Surprise,” I said, deadpan. “Aw, Captain, you did remember my birthday!” Lieutenant Dan'kre said, smirking beneath his helmet. “Don't be silly, Mr. Dan'kre, your birthday isn't for another three Standard months!” I retorted, then turned to address the platoon. “So, now that you've all experienced the real thing, who wants to tell me what it was like?” Unsurprisingly, it was Sergeant Dar who answered. “Well, ma'am, the auto-polarizers and sound dampeners worked fine, and I didn't really feel a thing, but afterward, I couldn't see or hear much of anything for a couple of seconds.” “And that, people, is the drawback,” I said with deadly seriousness. “The only way to avoid any effects from a flashbang is to either be out of range, or behind solid—and I mean practically airtight—cover. That's what makes these beauties so effective; even with these fancy gadgets of ours, if you get hit, you're vulnerable for just enough time to ruin any sense of situational awareness you might have had. It's better than being rendered unconscious or severely incapacitated, but in shipboard fighting, those two seconds can be the difference between life and death. And now for the good news.” I retrieved the four spent grenades and pouched them. “These things aren't all that heavy by themselves, but each one of you are going to be carrying a minimum of five of them—four flash, one gas—with you when we board, on top of your blasters' power packs and gas cartridges, plus your other ordnance. They are very effective against Force-users, due mainly to the fact that we prefer not to wear armor. But be warned: if they see you toss one, they're very likely to simply shove it right back at you. Any questions?” There were none, and each trooper's sense made it clear that they understood the implications of a misjudged attempt to flash a lightsaber-wielding Sith. “One more thing before I leave you for now,” I began. “I don't want you wasting these things on small clusters of Sith troopers or crewers. Save them for when we enter large rooms with heavy concentrations of hostiles, or else against Sith armed with lightsabers and the Force. These are precious commodities, and will save your life if used correctly and with deliberation. For the best results, and to ensure you don't become the victims of blowback, try to time your release so that the detonators go off when they reach your target; I've found that a three-count works best.” I nodded toward the two other officers, and we exchanged salutes. “Keep up the good work, everyone,” I said, turning on my heel and leaving the bay while Silas and Ibratu'na began to resume the platoon's prior activities. — — — For the next day and a half, the men and women of the boarding party continued to train hard, while I made intermittent surprise visits, usually bringing some kind of unexpected complication to the party. That afternoon Silas led them on another practice breach, once again tackling the engine room, but this time in full armor. Since he'd warned me by comlink well ahead of time, I'd been able to work up a few fun diversions in the form of miniature motion detectors, placed in random spots, that would trigger more live flashbangs and gas grenades, as well as the entire ship's compliment of remotes, some twenty machines in all, set to boil forth as soon as the main engineering spaces were opened. Nobody came out of that one looking pretty, and the Bothan later complained that he'd been among those “killed” in the skirmish. “Suck it up, friend,” I'd told him in private. “You'll be in it up to your neck just like the rest of us, so consider that a refresher course.” The day that followed saw no less than three more pop-ins. Now feeling very near to full battle readiness, to the point that I felt comfortable dispensing with the blindfold, I did my best to throw yet more hydrospanners into their machinery. While the platoon ran laps around the ship, I intercepted them at a T-junction just forward of the hangar with a quintet of remotes and my own DL-3 blaster, set to stun. The melee that ensued culminated in my simulated death, but not before the remotes' blasts and my stun shots had sent twelve of them to the deck. As the unit was finishing up their noontime meal, I lobbed a pair of gas grenades into their midst so that they could experience for themselves what full exposure would feel like (Marine training includes building up resistance to the stuff, which is seldom easy and never fun). After a trio of corpsmen had mopped them up, Silas divided the platoon and pitted the two halves against each other in a stun blaster fight through a series of lower-deck corridors that had been temporarily cleared of Vibrosword crewmembers. Without telling him what I had in mind, I used the Force to mask my presence and, prowling the area like a taopari on the hunt, I proceeded to pick off individual troopers without anyone realizing what was actually going on. By the time the Bothan attempted to call a halt to the exercise, no one was awake to respond, and he turned around to find me pointing my blaster right at his neck, grinning as though I'd just trumped his pure sabacc with an Idiot's Array. “Gotcha.” The intelligence officer doffed his helmet and stared vibroblades at me. “Tell me, Captain, did any of them end up fighting one another, or did you get them all?” “More like the latter than you care to think about, Silas,” I replied, my smile broadening. “It was as much a learning experience for me as it was for you and the rest of them, if it makes you feel any better.” “Oh yes, wonderful,” he replied with mock cheerfulness, throwing up his hands. “Just what every commander wants, to have his whole unit wiped out right under his nose.” “C'mon, let me make it up to you,” I said, slapping his armored shoulder. “Once we get everyone roused and we get off-duty, I've got a bottle of Corellian whiskey we can crack open. We rendezvous with Battleaxe tomorrow, and I was thinking of giving the unit the day off.” “Well, I suppose. We've certainly earned the rest after what you put us through.” Half an hour later, after I'd used the Force to revive them, the rest of the platoon assembled for one final lecture from me. Their auras radiated with embarrassment and consternation, but they paid attention as I explained what would happen next. “Tomorrow we meet up with our Interdictor cruiser, Battleaxe, then move on to the target zone. We'll be in realspace for some time, getting bearings and checking up on our intelligence via encrypted HoloNet transmissions, along with conducting spot repairs and other systems checks. The crew will be very busy all over the ship, so there's really no point in conducting any more training activities. Therefore, you will all be off-duty; free to take off that armor, wash your uniforms, and rest up for the big day. Just before we make the last jump to hyperspace on our intercept course, you'll be given your last general orders and squad assignments, your callsigns and comm frequencies, and briefing bytes regarding the final infiltration plans.” I paced once back and forth before the platoon, stopping next to Lieutenant Ibratu'na. “A lot has happened over the last nine days,” I said, an air of radiant pride in my voice. “You started out as Army nerfs, but you became much, much more. Despite everything I threw at this unit, each and every one of you stepped up to the table and gave it your all. This most recent exercise was not designed to humiliate you, but to keep you on your toes, and to teach you that, no matter what you do, sometimes the enemy is just better, or sometimes things just don't go your way. Simple happenstance has played a factor in countless battles and wars throughout history, there's just no avoiding it. You've made me exceptionally proud, and believe me when I say that I would go to war with any of you, at any time. Now, go get some celebrating done, you've earned it—and that's an order!” Everyone else present snapped to attention and, in unison, removed their helmets and threw their best parade-ground salutes, bellowing “Hoo-ahh!” — — — “I have to admit, Captain, you sure know how to motivate people.” Silas and I both took long pulls off of our whiskey, letting out sighs of contentment as we slapped our glasses against the tiny table in my quarters. I grabbed the bottle of Whyren's Reserve that I'd won off of Chek Nessai in a sabacc game two days before my departure from the Third Battalion and refilled the small vessels. “I couldn't have done it without you, not after what happened with the tech.” “We're Marines, ma'am, we take care of our own,” he replied, and I found myself chuckling at his inadvertent echoing of Bastila Shan's reassurances. “Well, you did a magnificent job of filling my shoes,” I said, weaving a little as the liquor hit me. I'd never really been that much of a drinker, and after three nights of healing meditations, I still needed one more before I considered myself in tip-top shape. “It's just too bad you went Intelligence, because you'd make a great company commander.” “Oh, if only I could,” the Bothan replied mournfully, his ears drooping slightly as his fur rippled. “You taught me something very important prior to the Iridonia mission, and reinforced it during the battle: you go where your talent takes you. I'm a good intel officer, or so they say, and an even better slicer, so until they find someone better, it's my duty to stay there. Besides, who'll write up the histories once the war is over?” I smiled, drained another shot of whiskey, and fell back in my chair. “You assume we're gonna win, Silas,” I chuckled. “Gotta stay positive, Captain,” he said, joining in the laughter. “I still don't know what's going to happen once things start heating up, but we've got a lot going for us.” “Like you, for instance,” I said with a sigh, blushing at how that had come out. Whether it was the whiskey or some other factor, I didn't know, but something about the Bothan's presence and familiarity in the Force held me fast, like a warm blanket. After a brief bit of introspection, I realized what that feeling was, and the shock was nearly enough to make me gasp in horror. Laera Reyolé, you can't fall for him! I admonished myself. He's half your age, he's a Bothan, and more important, he's your subordinate! “Me?” the lieutenant asked, raising his brow as his ears twitched. “Like you said to Lieutenant Ibratu'na, I'm just here as an expert slicer, not really anything else to it...” His voice trailed off as he noticed my discomfiture. “Are you alright, Captain?” “Just the whiskey,” I dodged, pouring another shot as my cheeks got redder. “I'm not much of a drinker, really.” It was one of those little white lies that one tells when they're embarrassed and I knew it, which made my cheeks flush a bit more. But the truth was too obvious to ignore. I'd first met Silas Dan'kre as a shave-tailed ensign on his first posting after graduating from the academy, and had fought alongside him in battle after battle during the Iridonia-Lannik Campaign. We'd gotten to know each other fairly well, and despite our disparity in age and rank, I had come to think of him as a friend and comrade in the same sense as Commander Thedus Bimm, who I had known for far longer, and whose presence I still missed. Even as we had gotten reacquainted aboard Vibrosword in preparation for the coming attack, the younger officer was still just that, a buddy, someone to play a few friendly hands of sabacc or pazaak with as we discussed the coming mission. But when I'd taken ill and nearly died...again...I'd somehow reached out to him on a different, far deeper level. It was an unconscious, involuntary thing, it had to be, sparked by my desperate need to find some touchstone to the reality I had known when it looked like it might be taken away from me. Maybe it had something to do with his place in my destiny, or maybe it had been the way he'd taken over training the platoon as I recovered, I couldn't be sure. What I did know was this: I had forged a bond with him, he was as much a part of me as my lightsaber, but in a different, far more personal way. Was it truly love? Or was it instead just some sort of infatuation, the kind I'd never really let myself have while growing up? While there were no rules against fraternization between enlisted personnel, or between officers (but not between officer and enlisted—that was strictly out-of-bounds), I had never pursued a relationship with a civilian or a fellow Marine. In fact, I'd only ever had intimate relations with another person twice. Hoping for some distraction, I downed the shot I'd poured, banging the glass hard as I shook my hair out of its bun. This, as it turned out, was exactly the wrong thing to do. “With all due respect, Captain, I think you've had enough,” Silas said gently, shaking his head as he got up. “It's been fun, but I have to get some rack-time myself.” “Yes, okay,” I said, blushing still more, if that was possible, as I corked the bottle and stood up as well. “I'll see you sometime tomorrow, then?” “Of course, Captain,” he replied with an indulgent smile. “On a warship as small as Vibrosword, I could hardly avoid you.” “Try shipping out on a Foray-class frigate sometime,” I said, walking the Bothan to the hatchway and thanking the Force for the change in subject even as the evening ended. “They make Hammerhead cruisers look like luxury liners.”
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