As the
Dancing Bantha drops out of hyperspace Dateen gleams ahead of her like a blue-green gem set against a backdrop of black velvet, strewn with a billion points of light.
The freighter veers slightly and starts to swing around towards the night side of the planet, and city lights come into view as the ship draws closer.
Sixteen hours earlier...
"It's a simple mission." Colonel Lias Kourene explains, standing in the almost-empty briefing room of Defiance Base on Mothessh. The only other people currently in the room are Jihon Mogg, Mark Jacobs, Neary Narf (and her everpresent mouse droid, Wheely), Reldan Jalt, Rhijans Thanus, Shard, and Shisskurr. Reldan Jalt's astromech droid, R2-O0, is not present.
"We've been having problems with some of the Z-95s lately, and it seems to be getting worse. It looks like we got a bad batch of power converters, and the only replacements we have here are from that same batch."
A holographic star map springs to life behind him, one of the systems highlighted,
"We do, however, have more power converters in a supply cache on Dateen, so we're sending this group to fetch them."
"We need Captain Jalt to take the Dancing Bantha to Dateen and land at Ker Aldas space port. A Rebel operative will be waiting there, and will show the way to the cache. Captain Jalt's astromech droid is currently being programmed to identify the operative."
"The rest of you will go along to help collect the power converters, our records indicate that there should be forty of them in four containers, and bring them back here."
He smiles,
"It's a real blue milk run."
In fairness to the Colonel, it's very likely that he didn't know about the star destroyer and two light cruisers in low orbit above Dateen...
A voice comes in over the
Dancing Bantha's comms system as the freighter comes within range of the Imperial ships,
"Attention incoming freighter, please state your identification and business at Dateen, and prepare to be boarded." Though they don't actually say, "Or else we'll blast you into dust.", anybody who has ever heard anything about Imperial inspections knows that is implied.