A return jump was simple maths for the slicing skills of Chu-Shkar and the rest of the crew were able to rest. It wasn't long before they reached the now familiar crystal planet of Isis. The Rebel base welcomed their return and the crew were summoned to see Commander Tallon for their debrief. T3-M8 chirruped happily in greeting to Klyn before Mon Mothma walked out from the commander's office and they were then ushered in.

The commander was holding a holo-disk as they entered and took from Lyla the recording Odrion had given her. He reviewed the disk and nodded his head thoughtfully "We've no time for formalities I'm afraid but my congratulations to you all. You have again done the Alliance a great service. It will be recorded on your records and I shall be henceforth promoting you to Lieutenant Rahn. Now I have another mission for you" he held out the holo-disk for Lyla to take "Lieutenant I need you and your crew to pick up Commander Ackbar, his team and the prototype starfighters they are working on. We need those fighters desperately. The Imperials new Nebulon-B escort frigates have put an end to any raids we can successfully make on any Imperial cargo convoys. These new starfighters will be capable of neutralising that threat. I'm transferring your unit to Commander Ackbar. You must hand this holo-disk directly to him and then follow his orders. Is that clear? Do you have any questions?"

Whatever Tera had done to her must have worked: Lyla slept for days and woke up feeling and looking as good as new, breathing easily and with no scarring or blaster burns. Then again, a razort claw swipe would've been something to show off for the scout.

She was surprised by the news – another promotion, so soon? Or rather, it was an upgrade, they'd made her officer instead. She'd come far from her humble beginnings. Lyla swallowed her embarrassment and feelings of being an impostor, and said 'Thank you, sir.'

She took the holo-disk, already thinking about the mission and seeing some problems. 'We're a small team with a small ship, and only a few of us are trained pilots. Will we need pilots for these starfighters, does Ackbar have them, or are we carrying the parts in our hold?'

The holo-disk taken Commander Tallon walked around his desk and took a seat. He made no motion for anyone else to do so and left the Rebels standing. His fingers tapped at his datapad as he considered Lyla's question "Ackbar has two prototypes. My data indicates you have three pilots capable of flying the starfighters. Ackbar's team will likely consist of trained pilots, I leave that for you to discuss with the commander".

The time it took for them to return was mainly dedicated to healing and resting, but Klyn also inventoried what they had salvaged from the AT-AT.

Thankfully they did take the time to heal while getting back as they almost immediately were summoned for another mission.
Klyn had barely the time to greet T3 and ask him to check the Gold, as he trusted the small droid to find anything they might have missed since the forced shutdown due to the Golden Sun power.

Lyla raised a good point about the pilots and the higher-up response was indeed well informed... but Klyn had hoped he could keep working on the keeping the Gold safe while someone else - a trusted one, of course - was doing the piloting.

He didn't really enjoy the fighters : too small, no room to do some real repairs...

But it was a small price to pay to be able to see... and most probably work on... the rumored prototypes.

Tera was back on her feet in only a few hours. All the bruising and blaster burns all faded to memory. She put all the other crew into healing trances on the way back. "Is any imperial activity expected during this mission, sir? Do they know of the new star fighters?"

Chu-Shkar had scrounged a droid brain and sensor package along with a vocal modulator from a droid he had found in the wrecked swimmer. Fortunately he was able on the trip back to construct a belt that could hold these and together with a spare datapad, he was able to make a translator for his speech.

As they went to the briefing, he was still fiddling with it. powering it up, he asked [Language unknown: "Wer estst eravirati an a peusos ho trtr? A causal shehououn thiad ti evth erawitcon leslindin k al erroathoec."] What came out was: "ARE you grapping me to flu one sir? I don't usually homogenize in the small cockpit of a starfighter." In irritation Chu-Shkar smacked the contraption and growled in frustration. [Language unknown: "Llreio weecen th oerpe the foev"] Which came out, "STILL wrecking out the insects sir."

Not offered a seat, and not big on the whole military discipline thing, even if a freshly made lieutenant, Lyla did what any twi'lek girl would do and perched her bum on the commander's desk. She tried to peep at the datapad. 'Okay, pilots are taken care of. Chu-Shkar can fly the Gold,' she glanced back to the Wookiee with a smile, glad she could understand him now, more or less, 'While Rynn and Jason can spell Ackbar's pilots as needed.'

She glanced down at T3-M8, mouthing a "hello" to their former droid, but hoping it was indeed the same T3. 'What about astromechs? Should we requisition some?' She knew what her first choice would be.

"Where is Commander Ackbar anyway?' Please not a water world, please not a water world, please not a water world...

"The starfighters have been developed and built in secrecy" Tallon answered Tera. He made no comment to the alternate growling of Ch-Shkar and the computer generated gibberish.

"The quartermaster will be able to provide supplies. Go see her before you depart. Commander Ackbar has his research base in the Roche asteroid field. I've had the coordinates transmitted to the Alabak's Gold astronavigation system."

As the commander sat at his desk his datapad beeped and he looked to the door "I have other business to attend to now Lieutenant . May the Force be with you."

OOC Galactic Lore, Life Sciences and Technology checks for whoever is interested in trying to recall any knowledge of anything.

As before I will allow individual or group requests for the quartermaster, an astromech or medical droid being around the top limit for a group request. Individual requests expected to be lower.

[Language unknown: "Ee dinundwhe riave itutni ichectnte, On evetichisthu, to lllofi t u antoussomven (ec n m attiie uraiiobe ect iouna on acremi), ecoun pa ollebepa allvirove llcapl fo someautio t eau thiei erathostr eau vermenardaretin urhoha Al miera."]

This came out as, "I COULD use three things, a blowfly, an upgrade to my computer, (as in an actual computer not just a datapad), and an astromech dude would be useful as they can handle navigation while I fly."

Growling again in frustration, he said [Language unknown: "Ckhiliwe she isllit!"
]
Which came out "BOWCASTER you nitwit!"

Rynn clapped his hands rubbed them together at the mention of fighter craft. He preferred flying the smaller quicker craft to the bigger freighters. Silently he made wondered what sort of fighters could take on Frigates. He snapped out of it when Lyla said his name. "Excellent El Tee. Can't wait to fly prototypes. We should get vaccum suits at least if we are going to be out there alot."

Lyla pointed to the waiting T3 droid; after all their missions, there was one astromech she'd trust above all other astromechs. 'Can we have T3-Mate back?' she made her final request to Tallon.

And: "May the Force be with you?" Why do people keep saying that? What did it even mean? Between obstructive and stubborn Jedi and only intermittently helpful corals, she still wasn't so sure this Force thing was a good thing to have with them. Life made so much more sense without it. 'Oh, maybe we'll get lucky. Goodbye, Commander. We'll bring back those starfighters.' She slid off Tallon's desk and led the team out the door. And away, to glory, or something.

'Ell Arr, you mean – oh, right.' she answered Rynn, remembering her new rank. 'Ugh, suits, again. Let's all get them, just in case we need to go outside and push... Mmm, and a helmet that fits my head...'

She clapped a hand on Chu-Shkar's furry back. 'Don't worry, Chu. We'll get you your blowfly.'

She thought about changing blaster rifles. She missed her old DC-15a, lost in an Imperial evidence vault somewhere, but the new SG-4 had been rather satisfying first time out of the box, compact and versatile.


OOC: Knowledge checks:
18:49, Today: Lyla Rahn rolled 11 using 1d20+9. life sciences.
18:49, Today: Lyla Rahn rolled 24 using 1d20+9. galactic lore.

The Roche asteroid field... the name rang a bell in Klyn's mind.

There was of course mention of secrecy, meaning trouble as someone was most certainly aware of what was going on.  Or they wouldn't have to move all those prototypes.

One of the good things from all that swimming adventure was that it had increase his skills for 0-G movements, which might prove useful if he had to get out of the ship to make repairs.

Klyn was quite happy that Lyla mentionned T3 because he had missed the little fellow.
Of course they had now a few skilled people to work with him on the Gold, but he would really appreciate having him back.

The device Chu-Shkar had spend most of his time working on still needed some fine tuning but it was a great improvement from his forced mutism during their last mission.

He was in fact impressed with the programming as a slight change in tune or frequency drastically changed the meaning of the roar. And the program was doing quite well.



17:20, Today: Klyn Cors rolled 17 using 1d20+11.  technology.

17:19, Today: Klyn Cors rolled 24 using 1d20+6.  galactic lore .

At Lyla's last request Tallon gave T3-M8 an affectionate tap on the top of the droid's head "if you need him take him, make sure to bring him back in one piece. I've grown used to having him around", the droid beeped excitedly and wait for a decision from Lyla.

OOC T3-M8 is worth most of what the quartermaster will be able to offer so any further request will have to be on the modest side.

"Welcome back teammate" Tera said happy to see the droid again. "Uh..,can I have a variety of grenades?" She asked when it came to requests.

IOC: for die roller results please look in the die roller. I'm posting from a tablet and it crashes chrome when I try to copy/paste

'So have we,' Lyla answered Tallon, then waved to T3-M8 with a fond smile. 'Come on, little guy. But don't get underfoot.'

Out in the corridor, she recalled 'I think the Roche asteroids are home to the Verpine, insectoids. Anyone had any experience with them?


OOC: What does Lyla know of the Verpine? Anything important or secret, or can I just raid Wookieepedia?
19:53, Today: Lyla Rahn rolled 24 using 1d20+9. life sciences - verpine.
19:54, Today: Lyla Rahn rolled 22 using 1d20+9. galactic lore.

OOC I checked the Wookieepedia entry for Verpine, there's not a lot there. I'm happy for any character to do some research on the holonet and learn what's in the entry.

"Nice to have you back, lad" said Klyn when T3 was once again recruted.

"I don't know much about them but what I heard make we very eager to get there.
Like you said, it's an insectoid race.  And more importantly, they are rumored to be very skilled in all maters related to ships and technological advances.

I am very much looking forward to see what the combined skills of the Mon Calamari and the Verpine created."

As Klyn talked Rynn tapped away at his bracer computer, checking the holonet for anything else he could come up with. "Yep, all that seems to check out." He said, seeing an entry that talks about Verpine. "It seems that they are also a hive based society. So we need to watch out with pissing them off. Hives can be tricky."

'I know, I kicked an anthill once.' Lyla answered ruefully. She recalled some interesting factoids she'd learned about Verpine. 'They have some kind of natural radio communication, and a hive-like total democracy. But they're pacifists, tech-focused... So we shouldn't have a problem with the Verpine. They might even be helpful to us, with parts or repairs, and they're sympathetic to the Rebellion... Provided we don't piss them off.' She didn't figure anyone in the current group would be antagonistic to the Verpine, or the Verpine to be antagonistic toward them, but if anything did happen, then Rynn was right – they'd make a lot of enemies very fast.