Glancing at Bishop Exilim says "For sure". Turning to the rest of the team he says "Lets get ourselves cleaned up a bit, stow our gear and wait for Three and Seven to finish cleaning before we do anything else".

Then, following his own suggestion, he starts the process of getting himself sorted.

On bug sweeping duty because he'd gotten his truck blown up probably, Daron went about his job just as he'd been ordered. "Did we really have a chance to get out of that unscathed though? I mean, we lost what, two trucks and our landspeeder?" He shook his head and worked over foot after foot of wall, floor, ceiling, looking for bugs. "We needed some surface to air missles, but it's not like we knew they were going to come at us with T-16's"

Starting at the opposite end of their home-away-from-asteroid-base to Daron, Devon began his own careful search for bugs.  As he worked, Devon listened to the other Talons talking.

'Yeah,' he called in response to Daron 'Next time I see an armed T-16, I don't wanna be on the receiving end of it... maybe these raiders have more T-16s, maybe they have something else...  Maybe they already gave us their best shots.  I figure we're safest assuming they got more where that came from.  So we need something a bit punchier than one unarmed speeder next time...'

"Two and Eight, you two are on patrol for now.  Keep your eyes open and your blasters handy, but please, please, please don't be trigger-happy."
"Three and Seven, take your time and be as thorough as possible.  Report to me when your sweep is complete."
"Four and Six, gather your thoughts for that debriefing.  We'll want to debrief as soon as we know this place is clean."

With that, Jamie began to lay out his gear, inspecting and cleaning anything that needed attention.  He paid special attention to the "party favors" he had acquired from one of the trucks, making sure to stow that equipment as soon as it was inspected.  When he finished his gear, he opened Mark's pack and began to go through that.  He cleaned and inspected the weapons, but spread the rest of the gear on Mark's bunk.

It took less than ten minutes for the warehouse to be swept for bugs.  The place was still clean for any kind of obvious tampering.  If there was anything there, it was beyond their skill to determine.

Outside, the patrol found a hotbed of action.  When they had entered there had been nothing more than a two-man stormtrooper patrol on the grounds.  Now people were running around madly, troops were forming into squads, technicians were pre-flighting transports and speeders were moving out at rapid speed.  Something was clearly happening and it did not look like a drill.  A half-flight of TIE fighters were being fuelled and pilots were running to their craft.

A squad of stormtroopers saw Flash and Bishop staring at them.  They moved over to the pair, weapons pointing at them.

"You two!" barked the commander.  "You are confined to your barracks until further orders.  Anyone leaving the barracks without authorisation will be shot on sight."

It was clear the stormtroopers meant business.




OOC: Well something has happened in the last fifteen minutes that has the base in a frenzy.  Fighters and transports are being prepped and just a lot of hustling and bustling.  The stormtroopers do not seem to be in a conersational mood at all.

On the bright side it means the Talons are being largely ignored as long as they stay in their building.  The whole area is clean of bugs (that you can tell) and you've got nothing to do but debrief.  Neither Mark or Zyra have yet to return.

Bishop gladly picked up his carbine and went outside to make some rounds only to be thwarted by a pair of stormtroopers.  As the stormtroopers carbines came to bear down on him he had to keep himself from lunging at them and beating them through their armored hides.  It took a great deal of willpower and restraint for Bishop to not bring his own weapon to bear on the pair of stormtroopers.  They were afterall one of his most hated enemies.  But Bishop was a soldier, and he was smart enough to realize the overall goal of their mission.  So he glared for a moment and just about snarled at the pair.  He waited for Flash to say something or back-down before he moved, he hated to be the first to concede.

Having finished the process of cleaning and stowing his gear, Exilim sat and went over the day in his head. He silently cursed himself a number of times for not having the team better prepared, it was his command after all.

Accepting that he should have done better, and promising himself to not fall short again, he called out to Jamie "Are we ready to get started?"

Done with searching the barracks for bugs, he finally took a moment to relax and take a seat. The thoughts of the driver he'd accidently gotten killed were still at the forefront of his mind.

If they'd had the right equipment, if they'd known that they were going to be going up against vehicles like that, maybe Daron would have been able to do something. Maybe if Daron hadn't told his driver to stop so he could get into the back...

It was apparent to anyone trying to find out, something was nagging Daron.

Devon straightened up from examining the underside of a bunk.
'No problems that I can find.' he said as he returned to his own bunk and finally started sorting through and cleaning his gear. 'I don't see why we cant get started...'

Zenna returned to the computer console when word got to her at the imperials were getting busy outside. "Let me see if I can patch into their communications relay."

After several minutes, Zenna called out. "Damn, there's too much traffic for me to isolate what I need. I need some help here."

rolled 11 using 1d20+8. Computer Use

Flash moved back to the barracks to keep from getting shot.  As he went, he thought about the fury on Bishop's face.  After a few moments, he said, "I have to reevaluate my first impression of you.  Seeing you show up with Nine, after the last time I saw you really threw me off.  As I recall, we picked you up off as TIE fighter out in the middle of nowhere, tied you up and tossed you in the back hold.   Not the best first impression."  As you recall, this is a practical speech for him, who normally hardly talks at all.  He was doing some serious thinking, while trying to express something he'd never had to before.  As a result, he got somewhat eloquent, for him anyway.  Feeling he'd talked his share for now, he promptly shut his mouth, and didn't talk anymore, except for monosyllabic responses.

As Flash walked away Bishop gritted his teeth and backed away from the Stormtroopers until they were back inside the barracks.  He took a deep breath and recomposed himself turning to walk with Flash.  As Flash spoke he simply listened, replying cryptically, "Nothing is ever as it seems."  He unconsciously scratched at his beard and his large facial scar.

Noting that Devon and Daron had both finished with their cleaning duties and Flash and Bishop had returned to the barracks, Xil calls the team together "Okay everyone, lets get this debriefing done before the Commander gets back, he won't be happy if we haven't got to it yet." He takes a seat at the table and waits a moment for all to join him.

"Let me begin by saying that we are here to look at what happened. What was good, bad, and what we could have done better. Getting into arguments and blaming people will not get us anywhere and will not be tolerated." He looks around the table before continuing "We also let one person speak at a time and let them finish saying what they want to before we add any comments and move on. Who wants to start?"

"Well, I guess I'll start. I'd like to say that I'm sorry for not going into that situation prepared for that sort of outcome. I got my truck blown up and we had to divert our resources in order to pick me back up. I should have been ready for anything, and honestly I wasn't ready for that."

"I don't think any of us were ready for that sort of assult. I must admit I had really only considered a ground assult as the most likely type that we would face." Xil responded to Daron.

"Let me continue by saying that I was in charge of ground ops and should have had the team better prepared for all sorts of possible attack scenarios. Obviously we were not armed for dealing with fast moving targets such as the T 16's that we faced. Something that we will need to fix asap."

Jamie held up the rocket launcher with a grin.
"You mean this?  I figure if we used it to save the rest of the shipment, we get to keep it.  Perhaps it's not very portable, but it may come in handy again."
He put the launcher away again as he continued.
"My first comment is that we put very little effort into our preparation.  We can do better next time if we put our efforts into it.  When we were attacked, I think that the team generally reacted well and rolled with it.  We had some losses, but we did survive and we saved the convoy.  We improvised nicely...but we shouldn't have had to improvise."

"Have to agree with those points" Xil said turning to Jamie smiling "Including keeping your new toy." He paused momentarily, "People did what they needed to, when they needed to. We can't expect not to have losses, and in the overall picture they were minimal to what they could have been if the whole convoy was shot to pieces."

He looks around the table before continuing "If we examine our preparations, it could probably be agreed that we spent too much time being exotic rather than practical. We know for the future that we need to be ready and armed to deal with aerial attacks as well as land based for this particular style of job. Looking at the arms we actually carried with us, we may have also been hard pressed to deal with anyone that had 'big guns' or armoured vehicles."

"You're very lucky you weren't" came Zyra's voice.  Turning to the door, the Talons noticed Zyra returning.  Mark was not with her.  She found a seat and joined the conference.

"Turns out the convoy was nothing more than a lure.  After you left I remembered Zenna's comments on the computer security so I had a look at the security precautions being taken.  The security protocols were sloppy, almost obviously so.  The Imperials obviously wanted news of this convoy to leak to the pirates."

"That combat team who arrived on scene was already prepped and in orbit, hence why the got to you so quickly.  They were under orders to await an attack on the convoy so they could wipe out the pirates in one go.  The convoy, its drivers and all of you were expendable."

"However its clear the pirates are smarter then the Imperials and did not take the bait.  Sending two airspeeders to tangle with such a rich target suggests they were not really after the convoy.  If we'd sent two of you after such a force the convoy would have been rubble in under a minute.  Their two pilots couldn't seem to hit the side of a stationary star cruiser with a targetting computer.  They were bait.  The pirates baited the Imperials who were trying to bait them."

"The question is, why spring the trap at all unless they were after a bigger prize?
This message was last edited by the player at 08:04, Sat 16 Aug 2008.

"Well that has added a whole level of complexity to this discussion." Xil said with a tight smile on his face as he turned and acknowledged Zyra's arrival.

"If there's a bigger prize to be had, we need to know what it is. It also means we need to be better prepared for any scenario. We were bait this time, and very expendable to our employer. It's not a position I'm all that happy about."

He looked around the table again as he tried to remember what they had left behind at their base that would be nice to have close at hand.

I get the feeling Xil that we shall find out soon enough.  Something has clearly happened judging from all the activity out there.  I've got some local contacts looking into it.  I thought about ferreting through Imperial records for myself but that's probably best done from another location.  If they traced a slice to us we might lose more that just our contract.  Already they're trying to dock our pay for the convoy job."

Zyra looks around the room, assuming the silence is due to her mention of pay.

"Don't worry about the Imperials.  I'll get our money from them one way or the other.  I really don't feel like trying to walk home.  With our finances the way they are, that's what we'd be doing if we abandoned this contract."

"Anyway, the Commander said you were debriefing on the job.  Don't let me stop you.  I'd be interested to hear what you've come up with.  The drivers seem to like you guys.  I suppose saving their lives does that to a person, even an Imperial."

"I wonder what those drivers would do once they found out they were only bait," suggested Jamie.  "I doubt any of them would be happy with his current expendable status."
"These Imperials are using us more than we suspected at first.  Personally, I don't like to be a tool.  If we want to get out of here alive, on foot or otherwise, we're going to have to play it out...but if we figure out the rules, we can cheat."

"I imagine the drivers will say nothing about their expendable status.  They knew their role in the Imperial war machine the second the signed up or were conscripted.  I doubt any of them will go out of their way to help us or speak out in any way.  If they did, they'd likely be reprimanded. . .or worse."

The datapad that Zyra was carrying suddenly pinged.  Turning away from the others she watched something that scrolled across the screen.  "By the force." she mutteres in suprise.

She called the others around.  "Well, it looks like we now know what their main target was.  Almost simultaneously with your convoy being attacked, a lone transport used an explosive of an unknown kind on the main civilian airport, approximately 200km south of this base.  A landing freighter caught some footage.  I'm patching it in to the viewscreen."

The viewscreen on the wall flared to life.  The view was from above and was grainy.  It looked like optical sensors from a large cargo freighter.  About 50kms below them a corellian freighter could be seen opening its rear bay.  Something large and cylindrical fell from the bay before the ramp raised and the transport headed upwards.  The ship was soon lost form view but the object continued to fall.

About 500m above the ground the cylinder seemed to break apart and some sort of fluid ejected from it in a massive spray that spread out over a radius of several hundred metres.  A few seconds later the entire thing erupted into flame.

The effect on the ground was catastrophic.  Buildings blew apart like they were made from kindling.  Transport ships on the ground were shredded and blown apart.  People could be vaguely seen on the ground incinerating like matchsticks.

Almost as quickly as it starts it was over.  The spaceport and a block around it had been blown away, as if by a massive tornado.  Fires burned all over the place.  Nobody could be seen moving.

Zyra froze the viewport.  "The Imperials aren't sure what the explosive used was.  All incoming vessels are scanned for munitions.  There is no trace of radiation or gas.  Any ideads Mr Webb?"

[17 blank lines suppressed]

thermobaric

Jamie reviewed the footage briefly.  "Looks like a thermobaric warhead of some flavor or other," he began.  "See how it spreads out the explosives before ignition?  It's simple yet brilliant.  It leaves virtually no traces of radiation.  These weapons usually employ explosive gases, but it looks here like a liquid was used."
He looked at the ceiling.  "Weapons like this are most effective in low-oxygen areas such as space stations or underground facilities, and least effective in an open area like this.  However, these are fairly low-grade technological devices and are relatively easy to manufacture.  Perhaps the people responsible are on a low budget?"

"Well this just keeps getting more interesting as time goes by" Xil said with his eyes still fixed on the screen.

Turning back to Zyra he said "While our explosive guru is pondering, here's where we got to in a nutshell. We have very briefly said that people reacted well and did what needed to be done when the attack started. We have only just begun to talk about the fact that we were not really that well equipped to deal with this type of encounter."

He pauses, thinking for a moment "I don't suppose you have a list of the stuff that we left behind at the base?" he asked Zyra.