The Wayfarer-class medium transport Chigliak dropped out of hyperspace near Telos IV and immediately began jockeying for position to enter the atmosphere. In the cockpit, a rough-looking human male dressed in a flight suit and coveralls hailed the planet's control; his voice showing Corellian accents. "Telos IV control, this is private freighter Chigliak requesting clearance to land in Thani for rest and recreation." In the distance, from the cockpit's window, the three other occupants could see the lights and form of the formidable Golan Space Defense platform. As they passed distantly, the Rodian who stood in the cockpit muttered under his breath, "Over a thousand meters long. Nearly thirty cannons and even torpedo launchers. You're insane for thinking any of this can work, Malos. I don't know why I-"
"Shut your mouth, Breevis." The armored form staring at the platform glanced away from it briefly as it passed from view. "Ten men can't take a platform. But ten can destroy it, or at least put it out of commission long enough for whatever needs to be done to be done, and that's why we're here. You know this, I know this. If you didn't want the payoff, you wouldn't have signed up in the first place. Stop your whining and do what you have to do."
Giving the armored man a faintly fearful glance, Breevis the Rodian scurried from the cockpit. Yhemn dismissed him without a thought. He was by and far an expendable member. However, he would be necessary for a time. Yhemn fully intended to bring as much of his team back alive as possible; to do anything else would risk his work ethic and reputation. Nonetheless, there was no way a mission like this could go off without a hitch entirely. Still, as on Praesitlyn, the parameters were large enough to give him room to work within, which under the circumstances, would be difficult.
"Hinot, once we land, tap in to the information net on the planet. Learn what you can about the space defense forces. If you can, find out locations of their snubfighters and what they might have in store for us. We'll work from there. I'm going to head back and prep the rest of the team."Added (25 Feb 2012, 3:45 AM)
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Having been approved for landing by Telos IV Control, the transport disgorged six members of the team: four humans, the Rodian Breevis and a Gran, who all split up. One of the humans, Hinot, immediately went to locate an information terminal where he could begin tracking down what he needed to know. Two of the humans went to find lodging where they could, while the Gran and Breevis went to find their own; it seemed best, after all, to split the team up. With a landing reason like recreation in Thani, they were unlikely to be noticed. Not many people cared when spacers came to blow credits on drink and females; money was money after all.
The four who remained with the ship for now, Yhemn, a Trandoshan, another human and an Argazdan, worked instead in the confines of the ship to prepare their gear. Speeder bikes had to be unstrapped and readied for travel; weapons and gear had to be double checked; it was a process that would work well enough with just four to undertake the task. From the information they'd been given and from public knowledge, Telos IV fielded a pair of CR70 corvettes, six squadrons of Planetary Defender Starfighters and two squadrons of Y-wings. A standard Golan-I platform could house two to four squadrons of starfighters more than likely, which left a good number to be stationed planetside for housing. It fell to Hinot to find the location of the based fighters for the next part of the plan.
Added (29 Feb 2012, 5:59 PM)
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Two days had passed. Yhemn was taking no chances and working with extreme care, ensuring his team did the same. The team was split amongst six lodging sites and even went out and enjoyed themselves in shifts, just in case there was some form of surveillance upon them. Hinot, expert slicer that he was, made short work of the Telosian security system without leaving a single trace. Then again, something like figuring out how many squadrons were stored at the closest airfield and its location would not be overly likely to be high security. In fact, the closest starport actually held two squadrons of Planetary Defender fighters. It was a shame, as they'd hoped to find the Y-wings, but not everything was going to go according to plan. Now, armed with knowledge, they began to do a reconnaissance of the starport to study its defenses.
Added (07 Mar 2012, 8:54 PM)
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Security was rather tight at the starport, as was to be expected. Armed military at the gates, roving patrols of foot and vehicle and of course, a myriad of sensors to prevent people from hopping the fence, so to speak. It was not inconsiderable defenses, but it was also nothing that Yhemn and his crew hadn't come prepared for, or at least wouldn't be able to tackle. It was just a matter of finding a breaching area. Like most military facilities, there was no quick and easy way inside. There was, however, a marked lack of aerial defense, meaning that something small and light, like a one-man repulsor belt, might well allow them entry.
Added (11 Mar 2012, 4:12 PM)
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It helped, in more than one way, that Telos IV was participating in the blockade of Chandaar. Their pair of corvettes they'd sent had made local news, with the crews hailed as heroes, and there was much reveling on Telos IV. Yhemn couldn't see the purpose in all of it; to him the entire operation was a farce, but it seemed nobody liked the Cronese, so the Mandate became the galaxy's whipping boy. By and large, Yhemn gave about as much care for the Telosians as he did the Cronese, which was to say none at all. Nonetheless, the entire situation came in handy between the merry-making and the partying. The perfect opportunity came when a large group of Telosian defense force soldiers, enjoying the weekend off from the starport, came into the city to have their own fun. The Argazdan, Grekkik, two of the humans, Rosh and Jolik and the Gran, Yeekry, made sure to become friendly with these men, especially their flight leader, a newly-promoted captain. It wasn't too late into the night when some of the men began slipping away, either withe females or simply to find a place to pass out. There were enough left, including the captain, that the next phase of the plan would work.
While Yhemn, the Trandoshan, Yeekry (who'd returned to the Chigliak with Grekkik) prepared the transport for liftoff, having paid the docking fee via electronic transfer, Breevis was in place for a distraction. He was in a very populated open square full of people enjoying the end of the week and imbibing more than a little alcohol. Blending in with the crowd, keeping his head down slightly to hide the nervous look, the Rodian made his way towards a public fountain that was elevated, able to give him a clear view of things and, more importantly, everyone around a clear view of him.
Hinot, the slicer, was ever resourceful and had appropriated a large enough public repulsor car for transport. He was currently in the driver's seat, utilizing the real documents of the former driver, who was now deceased and stashed at the bottom of a refuse heap and quite unlikely to be found for quite some time. The driver had been carefully chosen to work late this night, and bore a striking resemblance to Hinot; enough that the pair could have been brothers. With him were the trio of humans, Rosh, Jolik and Perry, as well as the inebriated Telosian captain who was quite passed out from a mixture of drink and a few roofie-type drugs slipped into his alcohol. Rosh, Jolik and Perry all wore uniform taken from the Telosian men whom they'd drugged, then stashed in their former rooms at the hotels they'd stayed at. It was easy enough to do under the guise of 'helping a friend to crash' and then putting a do not disturb sign on the door before going back out to 'party a bit longer.' All three men were rather doused in alcohol, and Perry had even vomited on his shoes, smearing some on his pants. All in all, they were a convincing sight.
When they approached the gate, Hinot slowed for the guard to come and check identification, all of which were handed to Hinot to be handed to the guard by a visibly inebriated Jolik, who went back to slumping in his seat. Hinot handed over his own identification card as well, giving a shake of his head and a rueful grin to the guard. "You boys sure can drink... these didn't last too long though." Like any military base, security outside of wartime was not especially tight, and so with a cursory glance at the identification, the guard waved them through; a little jealous that he'd had duty himself and was unable to go out drinking.
Once inside and on the base, the three men sat up straighter, no longer needing to pass as being in a drunken stupor. They already knew where the flight line was and that was their destination. The flight barracks was near the flight line, and nobody would be surprised to see four soldiers with their arms about each other stumbling towards the rooms. Four now, because Hinot had bound, gagged and stripped the captain, stashing him in the trunk of the repulsor car where he was quite unlikely to wake for another half a day. The car itself was parked in a public spot where pilots and soldiers could park their own vehicles for easy access. With a loud voice, Jolik continued to proclaim that he wanted to see the Planetary Defenders because he missed his ship so much, and the sight of it would make up for the woman he'd lost tonight. Hinot, grumbling loudly in reply, said that it would be irresponsible, but they might as well go to see how their friends were doing.
Stumbling along the flight line, which was unguarded largely because Telos IV was not at war and also because nobody ever really expected anyone to penetrate a military base, the four men expected little resistance. There was the tower, of course, for giving commands, and there was only one guard shack, quite a distance away. Stumbling about the rows of fighters, the three men besides Hinot took the opportunity to plant small charges on the craft in sensitive areas, each in a different spot as unobtrusively as possible. Eventually, all were planted minus four. When they'd reached the four they planned to take, a voice from out of the darkness hailed them. "Who the hell are you and why are you wandering around here at this time of night?" A burly, older sergeant of the guard was approaching them. He had a suspicious look on his face, but the Telosian uniforms were enough to put a man at ease. Nonetheless, his hand hovered close to the stock of his weapon, though he did not point it.
"Captain Tiberon, with a few of my boys, sergeant. Decided to come out and take a look." Hinot slurred his words on purpose, swaying slightly. The sergeant of the guard seemed to relax for a moment, then took another step forward, his eyes narrowing. "Wait a minute. I know Tiberon and you sure as hell aren't-" The blast of a holdout pistol brightened the area briefly as Perry cut the captain down in cold blood. "We need to move now," Hinot called, scrambling for his fighter and beginning the warm up even as the other three men did the same. The noise was likely to carry and while there weren't that many men in the guard shack, two or three might well come to check. As the engines whined into their warmup, Hinot checked his watch. The others should be doing their portions of the plan right about now. Engaging the repulsors on the Planetary Defender, Hinot, Perry, Jolik and Rosh would slide their craft forward, out of range, as Hinot triggered the detonator he held. Twenty Planetary Defender starfighters would now be rendered more or less inoperable without repairs. They'd hardly go up in explosions; the charges were too small, but damaged engines, landing gear, shattered laser cannon barrels and cracked cockpits all made the craft either too dangerous to fly or unable to do so.
Looking down below, Hinot could see a group of frantic Telosian guardsmen pointing and shouting at the four craft preparing to fly. One raised a blaster rifle and fired, ineffectively, as the shields dispersed the meager energy. "Let's go lads. We have a schedule to keep." It wouldn't be long before word got to someone high enough to make a call requesting help from orbit. Thankfully, the city wasn't that far off, less than a kilometer or two. As the four fighters rocketed into the night sky, Hinot opened a channel to the Telosian control, open frequency. "Telosian forces and government, this is not a request. You will stand down and name Perry Crass as legal and binding president of Telos IV. If this is not done, we will open fire upon your capitol. Any armed response will be met with open fire upon your civilians. Too long as Telos IV been a lackey of rebels and Separatists. We will bring the light of the Empire to Telos IV."
As his speech was being delivered, Malos Yhemn and his small crew would be taking off, and Breevis, seeing the craft streak overhead, would mount the fountain and pull a small blaster pistol from his pocket, firing into the air and screaming in a shrill voice, "The light of the Empire is come to Telos IV! People, you are free under the new president, Perry Crass! Give your vote to him or else I will be forced to do something terrible!" So saying, he put the blaster to his own head, the threat implicit that if Perry Crass was not made president, the Rodian would blow his own brains out. "Do not let the galaxy see you all as terrible unfeeling beings! Change for the better good!"
Added (15 Mar 2012, 10:53 AM)
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In the end, there was nothing the Telosian government could do. Oh, they could have called for reinforcements from the Golan; they could have tried to fight. The problem though was simply that no response that would be effective would actually reach them in time to help. Had they fought back, the cost would have been hundreds of civilians slaughtered, and billions of credits in infrastructure damage. The starfighter threat won the day; Breevis' threat was small compared to it, though he did receive a lot of notoriety in the following days as the 'crazy Rodian for change.' In a public emergency statement made only thirty minutes after the threat, the current president of Telos IV stepped down in a brief and confusing ceremony in which Perry Crass was installed the new president. Many of the Telosians were quite unsure what happened and there was likely to be an air of unease over the entire planet.
Keeping two fighters aloft at a time in shift, under the guise of a new civil air patrol, for two of the crew from the Chigliak had debarked and the freighter had gone on its way with none the wise, the threat remained steady. What would occur now was that, as president, Perry would order Y-wings from the Golan to be flown down one a time to a secure area, where two of the team would be located on the military installation. Once again, the threat of fear and intimidation of the populace would keep the soldiers in line and from molesting Perry's small gang; a small gang which would be increased by a further twenty men who'd been on standby outside of the system in a small freighter and who would land to take over the job of retrieving any landed Y-wings, checking them for homing devices and then preparing them for transport and removal.
In the meantime, Perry and Hinot would be working to ascertain how much cash flow they siphon off from Telos IV's government.
Added (19 Mar 2012, 9:16 AM)
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In a matter of hours, all twenty-four Y-wings with their full weapons compliment had been effectively stolen from the Telosian military, clear and free of bugs. Realizing by now that someone in the military forces had likely contacted someone on the Imperial side of things, Perry and Hinot struggled to quickly siphon more and more credits into accounts that would be automatically funneled into multiple clean accounts and recycled over and over, through hundreds and thousands of accounts in a giant web that would eventually render them clean. In the hours they'd been at work, the expert slicer had managed to steal over eight-hundred million credits from Telos IV, and was shooting for a clean billion before they stopped, but time was running out; the terrorist threat would only hold for so long, as would the threat of possible violence hanging over the military's head. Hinot knew they likely had an hour or less, and as such, was working with all haste.
Up above, their two remaining compatriots patrolled the skies, ensuring the military stayed down.
Added (23 Mar 2012, 5:09 PM)
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The last of the money transferred, Hinot and Perry slipped away to the pair of remaining fighters, making good their escape. Together, the four Planetary Defenders raced across Telos IV's night sky, departing the atmosphere opposite the station and then the planet, escaping into hyperspace.
