The feeling of an instant weightlessness hit the crew and passengers of the Reliance, and then returned to normal as the inertial dampeners compensated for the ship exiting hyperspace. It has been a day and a half since they left Coruscant, so this was an expected hyperspace transition for the next jump. But, after a few minutes, the ship-wide comm crackled to life.

  "CT-4805, CT-101, K1T1 and Jedi representatives, please report immediately to the Captain's quarters."

  As the participants arrived, Captain Batch and another person stood in the chamber on the opposite side of the fold out conference table. He spoke with a tall cone-headed Cerean, with close-cropped blonde hair and khaki tinted eyes, wearing a Republic Fleet lieutenant uniform. They were reviewing a holographic planet floating above the conference table. Several columns of glowing gold information scrolled up into the air above the holo-projection disc sitting in the center of the table.

  The Captain hit some keys and the planet shrunk as it zoomed out to show a star system with a handful of planets and a large asteroid belt. He pointed to a spot between the asteroid belt and the fifth planet as he spoke. "Lieutenant Nozu, we need to revert here, get the coordinates and jump the nano second you have them plotted."

  The Cerean nodded his tall head, and pressed some buttons on his own datapad as he replied, seemingly unfazed by the time demand. "Right away, Captain." The lieutenant hastened out of the room, acknowledging the others with only a passing glance.

  The clone captain stood tall and spoke in a smooth accented, but authoritative voice.  "Have a seat everyone. Our mission has been.. altered."

  He waited for them to settle in somewhat before he continued. "We have new orders from Military intelligence. They have decrypted a series of hyperspace communications and discovered that Separatist General Daas Boggus arrived at the Bissian system in the Inner Cluster Sector of the Inner Rim region." He motioned his hand toward the holo-display indicating that was the system in which he was referring.

  "He is high on the priority list to capture or eliminate for war crimes against the Republic. He took over the Bioweapons division from General Lok Durd and is considered extremely dangerous. He arrived in the system on a Providence class CIS carrier, which dropped him off with a Geonosian transport and then the carrier left the system. We do not have any information on what he is doing in this remote planet, but we need to find out and stop him by any means necessary. The Reliance is the nearest available ship in the area, and we are plotting a course to take us there now."

  "The planet Bissi is loosely held by the CIS, more of an agreement under threat, given their proximity to several Sep held territories. Intel suggests the Bissians don't have any Separatist military bases on the planet, but they do have a small fleet of Delta-6 fighters owned by the planetary defense forces. So we have several choices to make, seeing as how we are heading into a difficult position to begin with."

  Batch paused to look around the room at the Clone leaders, the Jedi and their droid. His gaze roamed from one to the next in rapid succession, before returning to face the holo projection. "Intel doesn't have an operative in the Bissian system, so we are unclear of the strength of patrol craft and planetary defenses. Going in with guns blazing could be dangerous for us, and could also reveal that we are after Toggus and cause him to flee the system. We have to come up with another plan. I did ask MI to come up with a cover for our ship. This is a transport and can be used for commercial purposes.  That is one possibility, and we hope when we return to realspace in the target system we will have that option hammered out for us. I'm sure you have plenty of questions, and I've given you pretty much all that I have. The rest, the people in this room will need to decide on how we execute the mission going forward."
 

"Captain Batch is right; we've got no fighter cover, and I've only got one platoon of clones with us. Might be enough to pull off a quick raid, if we're lucky. But we can't secure much more than a building, and most of them have never seen combat. I don't feel comfortable going in with the full platoon until we know where Boggus is and what sort of firepower we're facing. I'd bring Charlie's squad and maybe one other if we want to keep things quiet. If you want a full-on attack, the full platoon. But it's ultimately up to you. We are at your command."

Listening quietly to the captain, Tarrin's face turned to CT-4805 before he looked to Jini for a few moments to gauge whether or not his input was welcome.  Seeing that there was no disapproving look, he turned back to address everyone else.

"I agree with you, Sergeant," he stated with a respectful nod.  "Committing our forces to a full-scale attack will do us very little good if we are attacking in the wrong direction.  Perhaps we would be best suited to having a smaller team run reconnaissance to figure out the location of General Boggus?  Once located, we could then commit to an attack with more troops to reinforce and surround his location.  If we do it in this manner, I believe we will be able to both mask our intention due to smaller numbers as well as prevent his potential escape."

While the Miraluka was not as studious as Den, he did have a knack for understanding the flow of things including the potential actions of others.  It stood to reason to him that if they approached General Boggus cautiously with a smaller force there would be far less chance he would bolt for no reason.  After all, he probably came to this planet for a reason.  Perhaps some mission to follow?  And he would likely not want to abandon it unless absolutely necessary.  They could take advantage of that kind of mindset.
This message was last edited by the player at 12:19, Wed 15 Mar 2017.

The clone maintained a parade rest as everyone settled. Then got to the work of pulling information out of the captain "What demographic information do we have on the Bissian system? What value does it have economically? I haven't been many places on the inner rim where a half dozen armed and armored men can walk around without question and I've never seen a planet where that many identical twins in plain clothes would not draw attention. We seem to have good intel on the transport he took, do we know where he landed? Even generally?" He thought for a moment over the clone forces on board. "We might need the rest of the platoon for extraction after we have captured the General. Keeping them on standby to rain hell on our location is probably our best option."

   Captain Batch pulled up the information, which scrolled up in bright gold lettering over the planet. "The planet is dry, 88% land with very little water just in the pole regions. Basically they are a bureaucratic planet, lots of forms for everything. We can use this to an advantage if you get the right forms. Economically they do enough business that they take care of their needs with a few luxuries for the upper class, but compared to the core worlds, they are a backwater planet. They trade raw material, mostly alloys and polymers, and manufacture parts for various systems. Some mining in the equatorial region, which is dotted with several large, mostly dormant volcanoes."

 The holo projector comes up with more information in shiny gold lettering in Galactic Basic, overlaying the planet's image:


Bissi Type: Terrestrial

The planet is a typical rocky planet with a molten core orbiting a star. It has an Oxygen - Nitrogen atmosphere and harbors life.

Terrain:Cave

The planet is dominated by an immense network of caves running throughout the crust. These caves are often caused by volcanic activity, and some of the activity in the equatorial regions are ongoing, areas can quickly become dangerous as lava and toxic gases return to fill the caves they created.

Temperature: Temperate

The planet has a yearly average between 8 and 18 degrees Celsius, which is within comfortable temperature bands for humans and other life forms.

Gravity: Standard

Standard gravity is that which is most common on Core worlds, and therefore most comfortable for most species. Standard gravity includes several gradients of true gravitational pull, but is placed within this convenient grouping.

Atmosphere: Type I (Breathable)

A type I atmosphere has a proper mixture of oxygen, nitrogen and other gases so that humans and comparable species can breathe it unassisted.

Hydrosphere: Arid

The planet is 88 percent covered by land. The planet has very little standing liquid, and  little moisture in the atmosphere. There are a few large lakes and seas, but there are no great oceans. Much of the planet's surface is desert, and wastelands of volcanic ash.

Length of Day:36 hours   Length of Year: 255 days    Starport: Stellar Class

This type of starport can dock and service almost any class of ship. There are 2  shipyards in the immediate area, and they can handle minor repairs and modifications. There is a regional Customs office at the main starport in the Northern Polar region in the capaital city of Zidava, and another in the southern starport of the city Tohkt.

Population: 600,000 Function: Administrative/Government

This world is bureaucracy at its largest. The main industry is the orderly (or at least managed) operation of a government, business, or other large institutions.

Government: Loosely tied to the CIS, though it is out of the way to be much use for strategic value and has been left largely alone. They have signed treaties for trade and defense with Manaan and Cona systems

Tech Level: Space

This is the stage of most planets within galactic civilization, and is characterized by hyperspace travel, droids, blasters, and an efficient industry.

Charlie takes in the data picking the important bits out with the ease of long practice. "I hope he was here for a diplomatic mission because otherwise this is impossible. This lists two starports but that doesn't rule out the possibility of there being a landing bay at a base using the caves as an easily accessible hidden location. If he's the head of the Bio-weapons division then a set of tunnels under a desert is about the safest place to do business I would think."

He asks the captain "Sir, with that much volcanic activity, poison gas, and I assume sand storms. There must be a common head or face covering that my men and I can where while we are planet side."

He looks over at the jedi "Unless one of you have a feeling where we should set down, I expect we should head to the capital. Try to get our droid access to a terminal that has records or logs of the planet's dealings with the Sep Military." He kept his gaze on the Jedi, clearly expecting confirmation. He didn't really know how the force worked but it would not be the first time a Jedi walked up to a map, pointed to a random bit of featureless desert saying that was where the target was, and were proven right a few hours later.

Kalyx scowled hard at the displays. He wasn't keen on beaurocracy or caves, but he had a duty to fulfill. The concept of bio weapons was something that didn't sit well with him.
At Charlie's words he nods thoughtfully.

"It would be great if we could get General Boggus without any troops. No firefight means no innocent civilians get caught up. Better yet, if we could learn about the Separatists strategies without them realising it, we could potentially aid other conflict zones," Kalyx didn't rate himself as much of a tactical savant, but he felt obliged to offer some help here.

At least caves meant good cover for getting tight.

K1T1 listened as the Clone troopers and the Jedi exchanged ideas, attempting to formulate a tactical plan of its own.

"Sir, do we not have a database of stratagems already in current use by the Separatists against the Republic? If such is the case, a short surveillance of their routines should permit us to see what sort are in place, and how we can defeat them." the feminine voice paused a moment, then continued. "I do agree that finding a way to a data terminal will be an excellent way to discover what the Separatists plan to do on this planet, however."

The Clone Captain responded to Charlie. "We have plenty of vac suits with oxygen. I believe we have several rebreathers with out equipment loadout. You can check with our Cargo Master, Crewman Salyx to be sure. He's usually at either of the stations next to the forward docking ring. He's the only Ugnaught on board, you can't miss him.. well unless he is behind anything above waist height."

"I mostly mean to use as a disguise, not strictly for protection, Sir" He smiles at the joke about the alien "Sir!" he says in feigned shock "I believe we were instructed to avoid those jokes, everyone can't be regulation height after all."

  The ship's captain responded to the droid. "There aren't any more normal strategems for the Seps. Since Dooku was killed in the Battle of Coruscant, our intel shows they are in chaos. We can't rely on their typical plans since we don't who has control of what at this point. The good news is they are on the run and won't be able to muster much in the way of military resources against us. But that doesn't mean that this group won't be dangerous or have something bad planned. Finding them might be difficult, but this being a bureaucracy there should be an electronic trail to follow for his visit if anything else. Unless he came under an assumed name, in which it will be much more difficult to locate him."

Considering for a moment, K1T1 tilted it's head slightly, then asked. "Captain, would it not be safe to assume that the General would come here under an altered identity? Coming here under one's own name would certainly make people wonder as to what business a General would have here on the planet. He would still leave a trail, it would simply be more difficult to track down. Do we know when the General arrived in-system?"

  The Clone Naval officer, thought about it and shook his head. "It all depends on how many people he had with him. If he didn't have squad of droids protectors he might be able to assume a fake identity, but trying to hide battle droids and such would be more difficult. He would have to try to get past customs, but it is possible. We were able to confirm through the comm traffic from the CIS carrier that he did indeed board the Geonosian transport and head down to the planet. According to the report he arrived there 46 hours ago in system. How long he took before he actually landed on the planet, we are not sure. The comm traffic indicated he was headed there, that's all we know for sure. We should arrive at the Bissian system in just under 6 hours. We do know the model of the ship, so that's a great lead to find out more information. Unless they altered the transponder to a fake one. Speaking of which, if we do go with pretending to be merchants, we will need to alter ours. As the resident computer expert, can you work with our ship engineer, Lt. Chirris to make that modification once we get our cover from Military Intelligence "

  The Mon Calamari answered the clone squad leader. "Trooper Charlie, you are somewhat correct. Although, not all Jedi have the same expertise in all aspects of the Force, the same way not all the soldiers all have the same skill expertise as other soldiers. Knowledge in the Force spans many different elements. That being said, the Force can reveal to me a direction of a person or object. I also have the knowledge to track things that I have learned as well without the Force. Our younger Jedi also have their own talents. We will aid with all that we can in the mission."

Kalyx keeps quiet at Master Jini's words. He still has no idea how to use the force in such subtle ways and suspects his fellow padawans are ahead of him in this aspect of learning. Instead he busies himself with taking notes on the ship type and spaceport locations. He also tries to record any independent satellite and radar installations, just in case the ship landed somewhere in the wilderness.

  K1T1 stopped a moment and processed the information that the Republican Naval officer had given out, and brought a metal finger to its chin and tapped the metal lightly before the female voice spoke. "Perhaps once we arrive in the system, we can speak with Bissian Spaceport Control and request information on a vehicle that matches the description of the Genosian transport and find out its flight path to the surface."

  "I would be happy to continue working with Lieutenant Chirris on any modifications that she might want to make to the ship."

Den listens and watches the others around him. He is no tactician and is leaving those discussions to those who are more in the know.