ITOD Home > PSG Tour A1 (TIE) > PSGTa124 - Buoy will be Buoys

Battle 4, Mission 4: Buoys Will Be Buoys
by R.C.Miller (Castor@RebelSquadrons.org)
A Grey Squadron, of the Rebel Squadrons, Additional Text Briefing
for Grey Squadron’s add-on Mission 4, Battle 4, Tour
for the Star Wars TIE Fighter Combat Simulator game.

The reunion with Horvath and the crew they’d had to release to the Interdictor they’d captured was necessarily brief. But that didn’t prevent Castor from enthusiastically greeting the Spiculum’s command team as they came aboard. Nor could it have lifted a heavier load from Castor’s shoulders that the Horvath had bought a large number of personnel which, while the number would have been quite sufficient for a Calamari Cruiser, particularly the Aragorn, would almost adequately satisfy the current lack on the Black Widow. By the time Castor, the department commanders of both ships, Grey, and General Greedo finally met in the huge main conference room, which required a new complete sound system and microphones at every station, most of the excitement had eased.
“The first thing I’d like to address is the recent weapons failure,” Castor began while the attendees murmured among each other. “Just seconds before we actually needed the Widow’s turbolasers, Lieutenant Commander Shi’asa found that the weaponry required a special access code which hadn’t been there earlier. Her assumption was that the Phelangida had apparently overridden the bridge control, and rigged a surprise for us. She found that the use of the weaponry without this code would cause an explosion in one of the missile bays which was located near the power plant cooling control system.” Gasps were heard throughout the hall.
“So, Comp/Comm Lead was forced to shut down the weapons control until she could find and supply the code. As it happened, Chiri was able to extract the code from Spinel’s datapad, but only after the immediate need for it had passed. Apparently, the Phelangida command remotely activated a defense sequence which was already in place.”
“Lieutenant Commander Shi’asa.” Castor called.
“Yes, Sir!” The bothan stood quickly, saluting with a wide swing of her arm.
“You have my commendations for your timely recognition of the problem, your alacrity in preventing disaster, and finding the solution.”
“Thank you, Sir!” The bothan saluted again and sat back down, trying very hard not to grin.
“Humph!” Greedo said, and mumbled something no one quite heard. But no one asked him to repeat what he’d said.
“The Spiculum,” Castor continued. “According to Mister Horvath’s report, had waited at the junction, but his command team had started worrying about several hull stress points, which were speculated would fail long before we were expected to return. Not being able to communicate with us directly without alerting Malachite’s entire organization in this area as well, they made the decision to leave the site and meet with a mobile Squadrons repair facility. They had sent messages ahead, once they’d cleared the nebula, concerning both their needs and ours that they knew of, and were able to acquire most of what they’d requested from the Squadrons directly. Minimum necessary repairs were done quickly, and when they returned to Malachite’s hyperspace junction they found the Sapphire waiting alone there.”
Greedo mumbled a few other things, of which only a few spat invectives were even slightly audible.
“The General then supplied a number of coordinates where he believed we might end up, providing we were successful in taking Spinel’s Star Destroyer. The repair crew had set up the Interdictor’s transponders to give us clues, but not obvious ones, in case they showed up in an area who’s total population did not include us. Hopefully, the similarity to Malachite’s craft would give the Spiculum enough time to leave the area they’d entered while the already present craft were trying to sort out the details and decide whether the Interdictor actually was one of theirs.”
“The General had recently made use of a set of Malachite’s nav chips, and was able to trace the Sapphire’s hyperspace route using a recording device he’d installed to monitor the maneuvering thrusters. The Spiculum caught up with us at its second stop, the first having been a navigational buoy site, where no enemy craft were present. Upon review of the facts, it seems very lucky that the Spiculum did not meet up with any of Malachite’s ships, because they would surely have not delayed in attacking the Interdictor.”
“Humph!” The General said again.
“I’d also like to review the fact that there are no real coordinates in this area of dead space which contains Malachite’s Star Hammer project. All navigation is done by keeping track of distances, angles, and the rates of change in them. Since there are no visible stars to navigate by, or calculate against, it’s all a matter of blind four dimensional geometry on a grandiose scale. Any miscalculation, and it’s entirely possible that it could take years to find our way back to known space.”
Mumbles and murmurs had been punctuated with short comments as people among the group realized the enormity of the potential problem.
“Admiral, I still can’t figure out how you knew not to fire on the Spiculum,” Bigfoot spoke up, not being much concerned about the navigational situation. There were others who’s job is was to lose sleep over that particular thing. “I couldn’t get any kind of a reading on that ship through the sensors. It just showed up as an unknown with a name that sounded like all the rest of the craft that we’ve seen lately.” Rensal sat back expectantly with one hand on the table in front of him.
“Well, so far, all of Malachite’s ships that we’re seeing are named after arachnids - insectoid predators known for spinning complicated webs to trap their victims rather than actively hunt - of one type or another, or their distinctive parts. Katie keeps me far more than well informed on this, as she runs an almost constant commentary on the subject whenever a new craft is identified.” The group chuckled in their own fashions at Castor’s intimation that his droid’s discussion on the subject was more tolerated than required. “But when she pointed out the discrepancy, or rather the inconsistency, it became clear that it was almost certain to be Horvath and crew.”
“Yah. But how?” Ray Djo blurted out.
“A spicule is a small slender sharp-pointed body.” Castor explained. “A thorn-type projection; the operative word there being thorn. The Spiculum came in showing blue on our sensors, much the color of a sapphire, and should have shown up blue on Malachite’s craft as well, leaving everyone uncertain as to just who the Interdictor belonged to. Agreed that all of these facts are leaps of logic, highly coincidental, and based on a high degree of luck. But in Katie’s run of definitions and origins, she mentioned that while spiculum may be used to describe parts of certain rare arachnids, it far more often refers to the spiny projections on certain crustaceans, mammals, and those on the heads of rodians.”
Tacomah spoke up. “Admiral, you said something a bit ago that don’t sit good on this side of the fire.”
“Yes, Tacomah?” Castor prompted.
“Well, sir,” Tacomah began. “You said arachnids do webs. Anyone else think that we might be in one, and just not hooked it yet?”
“Hmm...” Castor thought for a moment. “You’re right, of course, P2. Those thoughts have been foremost on my mind lately.”
At that moment, as if having remembered something quite important, Greedo stood and left the room. All eyes watched his exit, some eyebrows lifted in questioning surprise, and Castor himself wondered about the significance of the rodian’s timing. Silence reigned for a few moments before Castor turned back to the group and continued the meeting, getting the new personnel their assignments and reorganizing the crew, along with permanently changing the name of the Spiculum (which everyone agreed sounded like something someone might cough up from the base of diseased lungs) to the Widow’s Web.

---------------------------------

...GREY SQUADRON TO THE BREIFING ROOM...
...GREY SQUADRON TO BRIEFING...

Castor stood in front of the Greys again; at least those Greys who were not presently confined to the bacta tanks. He’d already gone over the list of items that they’d been able to take from the Spinel’s depot.
“I mentioned before the tug that had docked with the Pedipalp as we entered. The Pedipalp was one the first craft to be disabled, and the attached tug did not have the time to run. The technician that had transferred to the Pedipalp was extremely informative without our having to resort to extreme coercion. Although the presence of the wookiee commando, Kanashaak, may have had something to do with that.”
The Greys nodded their agreement. Although no one knew every member of the entire crew, the giant wookiee was someone that almost everyone knew. Kanashaak was enormous, well over half again as tall as a normal human and a full head and shoulders taller than the average wookiee. Almost everyone stood to the side of the corridors, which Kanashaak occasionally had to duck through, so as not to interfere with his passage. Kanashaak, although lean, was one of the strongest of Shock, able to twist five centimeter wide ‘I’ bars into pretzel knots. He was also startlingly quick, and he moved with a soundless and deadly grace. The whole package, particularly the long fangs, made for a very frightening image, which Castor thought the giant must at times be self conscious of, but knew that Kanashaak could, would and did play very well to it when it was advantageous. Especially during the interviews of enemy computer techs who held vital information.”
“It seems that Malachite is rather conscious about project security, and has a number of his installations relocated on a regular basis. The standard operating procedure is to have a NavBuoy link give the coordinates to the new location. To actually have this method make any sense at all, the NavBuoys themselves, along with their protecting mines, are relocated as well. When ever a relocation happens, Malachite’s depots are given single use data chips which hold the coordinates to the nearest link point, and will automatically send the appropriate authorization codes.”
“The chip allows the craft to jump to the buoy link where it then picks up the location of the craft’s destination. The buoy’s protection will automatically fire on any craft not responding with the correct authorization codes, or, alternatively, might give coordinates to the center of a large asteroid. This, then, is why we can’t have the chip installed. The chips, in and of themselves, are simple and carry no false sets of coordinates, the procedure to install and access the authorization codes correctly takes an expert. While we do want to trust the coordinates inside the chips, we don’t particularly want to trust the tech that far, who is our only current source of information on the procedure.”
“Hmm...” Dave said. “Sounds like our choices are limited. What do we do from here. Could CompComm get into a chip and pull the buoy locations?”
“As a matter of fact, Dave,” Castor answered, “we’ve done just that.”
“Nifty!” Tacomah said. “Wha’dja git?”
“Among other things,” Castor replied, “a plan that should see us much farther into Malachite’s space. I sensed that the tech was, in fact, giving us entirely accurate information while assuming that we would have him install the chip, which would allow him the opportunity to get rid of us quite effectively. Since we never intended to give him that opportunity in the first place, we used his information as immediately as he gave it to us to access the information on the chips. We now have the locations of a number of buoy link sites. Probably not all of them, but a significant number, nonetheless.”
“Which brings us to this point. We’re sending out a number of operations to collect these buoys. While our Transports are going to be pulling double duty, most of you are going to be flying into buoy link sites and destroying the buoy mine fields.
“So, we’re basically talking Mine Racer missions, here.” Corran Jr. stated, recalling the ComTac mission he’d run so many times.
“We believe so. Although Greedo doesn’t really have much to say since the Sapphire returned, he has told us that most of the project’s mine fields that he’s seen have been highly accurate, but run of the mill, laser, ion, and missile mines.”
“You still trust him?” Taan asked hesitantly.
“Yes,” Castor answered tiredly. “I do. Y’all don’t know him the way I do, and for no where near as long. Yes, he’s obsessed with Malachite, and is overbearing attitude is hard to get used to, but the General is still the tactical genius that he’s always been. His loyalties are firmly in place, even though his methods are sometimes angry and extreme.”
“Angry and extreme!” Zsinj exclaimed. “That’s putting a little sugar on the snake.”
“As that may be, Zsinj.” Castor explained. “But I’ve been working on that particular aspect of him for a very long time. I believe that time is on my side, where Greedo is concerned. I’m younger than he is, and sooner or later, I’ll have worn enough of that cold exterior away that he’ll show that he does care. Eventually.”
“In any event,” Castor continued, “that’s where we’re at right now. Your starfighters are prepped, such as we have left, and your assignments are on your datapads. You should be ready to head out on your separate missions in about fifteen minutes. Nest high, my Greys.”

------------------------------

On his way back to the bridge, Castor felt more than saw the two figures fall into step behind him. He turned and, using the one jedi mind trick that he was very good at, phased into the wall. The wookiee growl that immediately ensued, assured him of his followers identities, without even having to look. It also told him that the wookiee knew what he was doing and could still see him. Wyeth stood dumfounded searching the wall where Castor had disappeared. Moriah growled again and pointed directly at Castor. Wyeth’s eyes searched Castor’s immediate area, but couldn’t see him. Knowing he’d failed in avoiding the two females, he uncloaked himself.
“Ladies,” Castor began. “Welcome to Grey Squadron’s new mothership, currently named the Black Widow. I’d have greeted you sooner, but there were things that needed to be done. I also apologize for cloaking myself, but we’re not entirely sure this ship has been completely cleared of traps and possible assassins.”
Wyeth looked dismayed, and her eyes began to build up fluids. Castor could feel her longing for the past he didn’t remember. He could feel her loneliness, her joy at finding him again, and her pain at finding him still lost. Moriah mirrored Wyeth’s feelings, but only supported her companion from behind with a big furry hand on human female’s shoulder. He walked to within one meter of the pair.
“This thing that you’ve just seen me do is only one of the few things I learned in the tunnels of Kessel, and since. I’m not a Jedi, nor am I a Lord of the Sith. My training was somewhere in between. I do not fear the dark side, and I an not entirely light. But I am fairly Force capable, although my strength and access to it does not range as either the light or dark side normally will. My talents lie mainly in self protection.”
A tear rolled down the fur beside Moriah’s nose.
“This is what I became. This is what I have been since I lost my memories.” Castor looked at the floor for a second, preparing himself for his next statement. “What and who I use to be died in those tunnels, and what I am now was born.” His chest tightened around his heart as he felt Moriah’s pain mirrored in Wyeth. “You must understand that I can not take advantage of your feelings for who I was. I can’t. I won’t. It hurts me more to say these things to you and cause you pain than I can feel that pain in you.” Moriah aborted a step past Wyeth toward Castor, and he looked at the wookiee sadly. “I see you both as quite attractive and desirable. But I have nothing more than that right now. I can’t steal from my past, or more importantly from you, to gain something that I’ve wanted and needed for what seems close to an eternity.”
Wyeth sighed deeply. “I think, Admiral,” she said pointedly, “that you are far more light than dark. And your efforts at being noble are quite successful, but...”
“They only strengthen your resolve and cause you more pain.” Castor finished her sentence for her, and Moriah whined a short growl.
“You used to finish Moriah’s sentences for her, too.” Wyeth blinked back a tear, while Castor could only look at her sadly.
“Wyeth,” Castor hesitated. “I can’t...”
“Oh! There you are, Admiral.” The droid’s prissy voice called as Katie hobbled up to the trio. Castor turned to look at his aide, but he didn’t reprimand it for the interruption. He felt they all just needed time to get things settled concerning his relationship with his two forgotten wives. Time he didn’t have, and couldn’t take. Not yet, anyway. “You are needed on the bridge, sir.”
“Thank you, Katie. I’ll be right there.” Castor said quietly. “Duty calls.” He said sadly to the females, wookiee and human. “This discussion has not ended; it is only delayed. We only need to find a ground zero to work from. Think on it.” His wives nodded, brokenhearted, and Castor turned to run past his aide droid toward the nearest lift tube to the bridge.

*********************