| Lieutenant_Dawes | Date: Tuesday, 13 Nov 2012, 10:25 PM | Message # 1 |
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| "You speak Basic? On your feet lad," Corporal Vanderbilt beamed to the Gungan, out of breath but not anger, being hoisted to his feet by a pair of RSF officers including Lance Corporal McCott, the intrepid young officer who'd been promoted since the last Gungan raid on the city of Kwilaan. But tonight, the city slept soundly—this group of Gungans had been sighted in the city proper and followed into the wooded hinterlands outside the city limits. It was McCott who had sighted the half-dozen strong party of Gungans casing the city's sensor array at sundown. Vanderbilt, despite his incredulity that the Gungans would be so bold as to hit the same place twice, had followed up on his Lance Corporal's suspicions and assigned a detail to follow the Gungans on foot into the woods.
Then again, the Gungan rebels under General Tenko had only become bolder. Just last month, they'd staged a daring raid on the fort city of Spinnaker, making off with a pair of stolen gunboats. No RSF officers killed, though. Nor in the raid on Kwilaan. General Tenko's war seemed to be with the Empire, not the people of Naboo. Considering, a hit on Kwilaan's sensor array seemed odd to Vanderbilt—until McCott reminded him that the Imperial garrison in this hemisphere used the sensor array as well. That was the clincher.
Lance Corporal McCott had led the men into the woods with commendable stealth, managing to get the drop on the Gungan advance team. Despite using the RSF's own weapons against them—stolen in the raid on Kwilaan's arms depot, no doubt—the element of surprise was not to be understated, and the Gungans were no match for McCott and his riflemen. There'd been a firefight and a good scrap that ended promptly when the ever-moustachioed Vanderbilt and reinforcements arrived on-scene in a V-19 and made quick work of the remaining Gungans.
He stood, hands on his hips and chin held high as McCott and the others secured the last Gungan prisoner. "What's yer name then?" he beamed.
"Rai Po, Sir," McCott told him. "Sergeant Rai Po. I thought I recognized him from the Imperial ATL, not to mention the holofootage from the raid on the depot. Now that I see him up close, I'm sure of it."
Sergeant Rai Po, General Tenko's second in command, said nothing as he stared forward, a defiant look on his weathered face. "Nothing to say for yourself, what?" Vanderbilt said, then shrugged. "Book him, McCott." As the party was led away, Vanderbilt, hands still on his hips, shook his head. Should be thankful it was us caught him and not the Imperials, he thought. Then his dinner re-arranged itself in his stomach as he remembered, even before he heard the distant whine of repulsorlifts, that another blasted Imperial patrol was due here tonight. "McCott! Pack it up in a hurry, what?" the Corporal called out.
"Yes, Sir."
He added softly to himself as he gazed into the wood, "I have a bad feeling about this."Added (13 Nov 2012, 10:25 PM)
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The characteristic hum of a speeder bike's repulsorlift engine came, then went. As the sound receded as it had come, Vanderbilt breathed a sigh of relief. His altercations with the Imperial patrols no longer had the panache they once did for Vanderbilt, who used the occasions to project his elocution at the top of his lungs. His lungs now were tired, his patience tried. And if the latest Imperial patrol to intrude on his territory noticed they'd captured a wanted Gungan fugitive, the altercation could become more than verbal.
No, Vanderbilt resolved as he seated himself in his landspeeder, this Gungan was arrested by the RSF for crimes against the people of Naboo. The RSF would get the credit, not the Imperials. But while Corporal Vanderbilt proceeded discreetly back to Kwilaan on this night, he would show a pronounced lack of discretion the following day in announcing the arrest of Sergeant Rai Po to the media even before he'd notified his superiors. He was a well-intentioned man, but he wasn't a very reflective one. Preoccupied with appearances, he was more interested in the credit than the consequences, which would no doubt become apparent to him and to many players on Naboo in the coming days.
Lieutenant Whilm Dawes
Naboo Royal Security Forces
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