Shard's fingertips itch.

It's habitual; she arrives back from a mission, and it's time to take a break from responsibility, to take a leave from the fear of failure, to 'celebrate' everyone making it home and try to forget those who haven't, this time and every time before.  To drown herself, wash away past losses, past sins.

But this time, she grits her teeth and struggle to hang on to her resolve.  She made decisions, and it's high time she tried to keep them.  The team made it back this time, the whole cursed team; isn't that a good omen for a change?  Not that she should need such things to make a difference, but.  If excuses have worked against her in the past, perhaps this one can work for her.

And there's no time, none at all.

"An hour is too long," she replies to the woman, brushing down her uniform.  There hasn't been time or reason to change, and she's still stuck in the thing.  "If the Colonel is free, we should debrief now."  A shrug follows.  "If he isn't, we'll have to wait, but I'm playing the 'vital to the survival of the Rebellion' card." She fixes the woman with her gaze.  "It's a first, and hopefully the last.  If you can, I ask - I beg - that you get him to see us now."

Juragga was about to hoot in protest at only having an hour, and then Shard blew that off and wanted the debriefing right away.  His teal eyes bugged and he almost choked as he swallowed a retort; if had been anyone else, he would have given them what for.  But he had too much respect for the Jedi to do so.

Instead, he let out a "mmmmhhhhhhrrrr" of disappointment and then chuffed a query: maybe the could have a food tray brought to the meeting?

Rhijans had been prepared to shrug and roll with the schedule as announced, until Shard's insistence on an immediate debrief reminded him of the urgency of what they'd collected.  He didn't say anything...but he stepped over behind her, looking at the poor woman who was stuck being the messenger in the situation, and crossed his arms over his chest.  The move wasn't overtly menacing...but it did have a sense of finality to it.

"It will have to be an hour." the aide replies, a little coldly.  Her own gaze meets Shard's unflinchingly, "Yours is not the only team which has been performing a mission 'vital to the survival of the Rebellion'.  Another team is currently being debriefed.  The Colonel has been informed of your return, and when he has finished with them, he will see you.  For now you have an opportunity to get changed, eat something, and get your reports straight.  I strongly... "

Her voice is drowned out by the roar of a freighter, possibly Vekkis Lund's Bold Gambit, heading out of the hangar.

"I strongly suggest that you take that opportunity.  Not everybody has a chance to do that today."

"Void," Shard snaps, "our mission wasn't supposed to be that vital, it's the cursed information we received and the bloody timeframe we're all working in."  Struggling, she manages to calm down.  There's no sense in shooting the messenger, and the woman isn't going to change her tune. "All right, then.  An hour."

Turning back to the group, she raises both hands.  "An hour, but let's get everything settled, right?  Hardcopy of whatever you dragged off the system, Haarmon, or at least a summation.  We have the Admiral's report, as well.  Give me that, I'll start going over it for us.  Get relevant information.  Like the Admiral's cursed name."

Juragga murred in horrible disappointment that he had to go groom and eat before briefing the Colonel.  Really, it broke his Wookiee heart.

"See ya in an hour!" was the enthusiastic hoot as he ambled off.  His stomach spoke, and when it called, the wise vacated his path.

Rhijans picked up a pocket data unit and started outlining a tactical assessment, as best he could, of the location...the massive risk of sending ships into the system at all, with all the Imperial craft in orbit...the layout of what little part of the base they'd actually been through, with notes on personnel--technicians, standard Imperial Army or Navy troops, stormtroopers, etc--with their numbers extrapolated to reflect the likely amount of personnel in the whole base...the indigenous risks to trying a surface assault...

He wasn't a military man...more of a semi-professional troublemaker, at this point...but in his estimation, the only hope of defusing the situation was to erode the extremities of the Imperial program, rather than trying to strike at the heart of it again.  Anyone else going in there for the next several months would get a microscopic examination of their credentials and orders, so trying the same trick again was pretty much a non-starter, for plans...

After making his initial notes, he decided some food might be a good idea...it'd help keep him focused, mentally, and while that shouldn't have been much of a consideration here, it was a habitual concern for him.  "I'm gonna hit the commissary and get something to eat and drink...want me to bring anything back for you?" he asked, to those still aboard.  On board the ship seemed the most likely place to have a relatively quiet place to think and polish his notes in preparation for the debrief.

It's closer to an hour and a half.  The team are at the Colonel's office on time, but the officer isn't there.  Reldan Jalt is missing though, having apparently been ordered to ferry another group of Rebels on an urgent mission.  During the ninety minute wait, a number of ships have left the base, and talking to the few personnel still about, there seems to be "something big happening."

When Colonel Kourene eventually arrives, the same woman they spoke to in the hangar is with him, carrying a thick sheaf of documents.  The Colonel walks into the office, and starts speaking before he even reaches his desk, "Good morning everybody.  Sorry I'm running a bit late, but I was off-site and couldn't get back any earlier."

The aide puts a recorder on the desk in front of Kourene, and finds herself a place to sit, where she starts reading the documents, while still obviously listening to what's bein said.

"So... who wants to tell me what's going on at Osmur?  Do the Imperials have a facility there?" the Colonel asks.

Rhijans gave a snort that came out as a soft huff of air.  "That's stating it mildly..."  He did his best to keep irritation from the extra half hour of waiting out of his voice, and the annoyance in his eyes seemed to vanish behind a mask of imposed professionalism.

"The entire system is being patrolled by more Imperial ships than I think I've seen in my entire life, prior to going in there.  The base--and the fleet, for that matter--are secondary concerns to the project they're working on...I think Shard or Haarmon can tell you more about that.  All I know for sure about it is that if they ever get a chance to finish it, it's a monstrosity that will be fatal to entire planetary populations, and the base and fleet are designed to make it impossible for someone to attack it while it's being assembled there.  We managed a few surprises that will set them back for a while...but you're not likely to get another infiltration team in there unless you can get them iron-clad IDs and orders.  I think this is bigger than we're geared to handle...the only way to stop this thing will be to prevent stuff from arriving at Osmur, because trying to do anything about it once they've got it there will be massively costly, in a best-case scenario.  It will be outright suicide, in anything other than a best-case scenario."  His tone was flat, devoid of any sort of emotional urgency that might make his assessment sound like hyperbole.  Whether or not anyone else in the room might believe him, he was pretty sure that a return visit to Osmur would result in a lot of dead Rebels.

Shard waits while the experienced Rhijans gives his assessment.  It's a bit of a back-to-front debriefing, with the defenses being laid out before they talk about the situation, but sometimes it's better to make that point first.  "Agreed," she states when Rhijans finishes.  "We have a great deal of information, Colonel, both from personal observation and information we garnered from their computers.  Some of that was actually handed to us as a report."

She offers a thin smile. "Admiral Brishin got the idea in his head that I was Nimadda.  Given Nimadda showed up while we were leaving, he - or his successor - won't make that mistake again."

"From the look of it, it's basically another version of that superweapon everyone has been talking about recently.  Some kind of huge station, with planet-killing weaponry."  The idea sickens her.  "We've got specs, tech information...and full information on its defenses, though they're probably going through changes."

Her lips tighten and she leans forward.  "Admiral...if the rumors about that other superweapon are true, and we did manage to destroy it, the Empire won't make the same mistake twice.  Thanks to some really inspired sabotage on the part of Haarmon and Rhijans, their schedule will be set back and their defenses are weak right now.  But in a few weeks they'll be able to get that fixed, their defenses will become effectively impregnable, and they'll finish that thing."

About half way through Rhijan's statement Kourene lowers his head and pinches the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger.  He stays like that until Shard finishes.  And for about ten seconds after.

Finally he looks up, "We'll have to send another team in, I suppose.  Obviously you can't go back there - too much chance that you'll be recognised.  I'll need hard copies of all the information you have on the layout of the base.  And your best estimates of manpower and equipment."

"Collas... " he looks at the female aide, "I'll put you in charge of getting a cover story together.  Take your time - I'd rather have a story that takes a month to work up and stands up to scrutiny than a quick one that's full of holes."

When he looks back to the group, he looks like a man who's just bitten into something sour, "Thank you for bringing this intel.  I'll act on it as soon as possible."

Rhijans nodded at the Colonel's request.  He'd expected...and prepared for...as much.  He held out the datapad where he'd put his notes together, sorted in order of encounter--fleet picket ships, the core of the fleet (as he remembered it), planetary defenses, compound layout and estimated garrison strength, and a final section on the natural threats that were mentioned.  "We didn't get to see very much of the compound, so I can't vouch for the accuracy of the estimates on the ground forces or the identification of some of the compound buildings.  The stuff we did see and are positive of, I've noted.  It's likely they'll make some changes as a result of this, possibly increasing troop strength and the base layout might shift a bit, but I can't imagine any of these core buildings will shift.  We didn't do THAT much damage...I think..."

He realized, as he made the statement, that he had no idea what a shield generator, even one that might be on standby or powered down, might do when it blew up--much less several of them in close proximity.  They may have just blown all the internal components on one...or several...they may have fried the interior of the building...they may have taken the top off the place and toppled the dish.  If the blast was big enough to feed back into the energy channels, they may have left a massive crater where the shield generator used to be.  They hadn't exactly been in a position to closely scrutinize the damage when the blast went off.

At any rate, confirmation of all that information would be someone else's job.  And he didn't envy them a minute of it.  Being a saboteur was risky enough...following up a sabotage mission, when the enemy was already on edge and angry, rather than complacent in their sense of security, was standing on tiptoe on the razor's edge.  While he was sure there were situations in which he'd be willing to do that, he couldn't envision any of them right now.

Shard drums her fingers on her thigh, only half-listening to Rhijans.  Not through boredom.  Nor through relief.  Nor, even, due to anticipation of a bottle of Zidran Brandy; there's likely a half-full one somewhere in her quarters, despite her last whirlwind attempt to throw them all away before she changed her mind.

No, this is worry.

She studies the Colonel for a long moment, her lips pursed.  The older woman blinks several times, and her gaze rises to stare at the wall behind him.  Through the wall behind him.  Slowly she breathes out, nodding to herself.  There, the void, the empty calm.  There, her nervousness, frustration, hunger.  And there, between them, the balance.

Her breath escapes her in a hiss.

"Colonel," she finally begins, "is there something else?" Her gaze returns to his face.  "Something you're not telling us?"

For his part, Juragga sat quietly.  But as the report was given and the Colonel reacted, he went from feeling like they had done amazingly well... to feeling that they'd failed somehow, missed a key opportunity.  Wouldn't it have been worth their lives to destroy that thing?  Could they have managed even if they'd tried?  SHOULD they have tried?

The Wookiee had nothing but questions, now, in place of a smug sense of triumph.

The Colonel seems... not displeased by the report, though he is concerned by its implications.  He also appears to be a little distracted as Rhijans fills in more details (or explains the lack thereof).

Still not displeased.  Just concerned.

That changes when Shard asks him if there's anything he isn't trlling them.

"How... ?" he demands angrily, then, "Ah... damned Jedi.  Always snooping."

He calms down again almost immediately, stands, and turns his back.  After a brief interval Collas, the aide, coughs and says, "Forgive me Colonel, but you told me that it's my job to advise you, and to tell you if I feel you've made a mistake."

"I believe that you should tell them what's happened."

Kourene turns back, glaring at the aide, his face flushing red, and he opens his mouth to speak, then bites down on his words.  Closing his eyes, he stands in silence for a moment, before quietly starting again.

"We sent out three other teams, shortly after you departed for Osmur.  All of them have suffered heavy casualties.  Only one member of Echo Team came back, and he's currently in a bacta tank aboard a medical frigate.  It appears that the Imperials are starting a major push back against us."

"To make matters worse, we've heard from Vekkis Lund, who was sent to Oomba's base to negotiate a price for power couplings, that the Hutt has, very recently, taken possession of a batch of slaves, delivered to him by an Ubese smuggler, who apparently had a ship full of them."

At the news of the casualties, Juragga's eyes widened, but they narrowed sharply and his fangs were bared at the mention of the Urbese smuggler handing slaves over to the Hutt.  He snarled in wordless indignation and outrage.

Rhijans' face would have shown a scowl, if it had been that expressive.  His eyes went icy hard at the mention of what the Ubese had done.  Yes, they'd used him as a prop, of sorts, turned him into the phantom the stormtroopers had been chasing around the base, but that didn't excuse the action at all in Rhijans' mind.

He wasn't sure what to say...he'd lived too long in a world where the commentary on such actions was the report of blaster fire, and struggled to find words.  "Should've just left him on that ice ball," he muttered.  They couldn't have, really, though, because they'd needed another ship to get the slaves away, and the Ubese had been the only other pilot.

He seemed about to speak, to explain or comment or something...and then closed his mouth.  His jaws clenched as he considered the dilemma they'd been in, and the only way out of it they'd seen at the time...but it didn't comfort him any, just nursed a seed of annoyed resentment for the Ubese.

Shard snorts.  "Not...Jedi," she mutters, though there's no sense in denying she had felt something.  But one doesn't need to be a Jedi for that much.

Her frustration, however, transforms quickly to first concern, then flat-eyed fury.  There's a faint grinding sound from the vicinity of her jaw, though nothing appears to move for a long moment.  Then, with surprising rapidity, Shard relaxes, but it's into a slump. "Void.  Hot, cursed, void," she mutters, running fingers through her hair. "That little worm. Yeah, we should have, Rhijans."  She glances at the man, sees something that's as close to an open wound as the man has shown.  And she can't help but understand.

From the Imperials to the Hutts; it's not an improvement for the slaves.

"All right," she sighs.  "What are we doing about the slaves?  Anything?  We can't, can we, not with the Imperials pushing hard.  And now we know why." One finger jabs at the hardcopy they've left on the Colonel's desk. "That.  They want us off-balance, uncertain, and not snooping around and finding out about their plans."

Her tone hardens.  "Too late."

"We've paid for this information with the dead of Echo team.  And those slaves haven't any reason to thank us, either.  But if we're ever going to have a chance to help people get out from under those Hutts, we have to do something about this first, curse it all."

She closes her eyes. "That would be the tactically sound way to think...but we can't just abandon those slaves.  Colonel..."  Her lips peel back from her teeth in something that remarkably resembles Juragga's expression.  "We can't just leave them."

Juragga rose, shaking his head.  "WaaaAAAhhhhrruuuuhhhhNN," he rumbled.  He would not leave those slaves to their fate; could not.  To him, it was a matter of honor.  Wookiee honor.

"As far as I'm concerned, I'm responsible for the people on this base." Kourene looks tired as he adds, "And their actions."

"That means I need to find out how the other teams' missions were so severely compromised.  But it also means that I have to get those people off Carodol.  As far as I'm concerned one of my teams handed them to Oomba - and I'm not blaming you, you thought you were taking the best option to free the slaves - but it's my job to make sure that it gets rectified."

He takes a seat at the desk again, "The problem is that the two things have happened at the same time.  With the losses on the other teams I can't afford to send as many people as I'd like to Carodol.  And I need to keep  enough back to hunt for a spy, here on Mothessh."

"If anybody has a brilliant and unorthodox plan, for dealing with either of those things, I'd like to hear it."

Rhijans contemplated the problem a moment.  Part of him...a small part, that occasionally cried out and was generally promptly ignored...wanted to rush off and deal with the issue of the slaves and the Ubese.  The more rational part of him, the part he'd learned to listen to early on for the sake of his own survival, pointed out the many flaws with that plan...making a 'message' out of the Ubese would mean confirming to Imperial spies that the events on Alrirkr were, in fact, the work of Rebel agents--something he'd gone to great pains to obscure, even though odds were good the Empire would assume it had been Alliance operatives.  So they couldn't very well make an example of the Ubese.

And there was the question of the security breach.  He'd never worked with an organization this size before, so operational security, in his experience, had always been a matter of 'don't tell anyone else what you're doing' and the problem took care of itself.  He started thinking about the whole matter.  "I don't really have enough information to start building a plan, unorthodox or not.  How many and which people knew about the other missions, but didn't know about ours?  That seems the obvious direction to start looking..."

The problem with hunting spies was that they were really good at not being noticed, but they had to start narrowing the field of possible suspects somewhere.  Even if nobody on the initial list proved to be a spy, the behavior of people around them while they were being investigated could give a clue...

"Your guess is as good as mine.  We've had people in and out of here, and a lot of them, in theory, didn't know about your trip to Osmur." the Colonel responds, "The big question then is how many of them knew about the other teams.  In theory, none of them, because I try not to tell people about missions that they aren't involved in, at least until people are safely home."

He shrugs, and spreads his hands, "So, in theory, again, that points to the senior people on this base, because only we know about all missions.  And, by the way, we have no proof that word of your trip wasn't leaked.  After all, Ghea Nimadda did show up at Osmur.  Maybe you only got away with going there because it was all arranged at the last minute, and the Imperials didn't have time to set up a proper reception committee for you.  For all we know, they got word about your visit, and the Moff sent his pet assassin to deal with you, but she arrived just as you were leaving."

"Cursed good thing, too," Shard mutters.  The lean woman paces back and forth in the office, frustration filling her.  "I see the problem, Colonel.  I could...try to help with ferreting out a spy, but given your comment earlier, I don't think you'd like my methods.  Frankly, I don't particularly like them, and would rather not."

Pursing her lips, she blows out a slow whistle, then nods.  "We could handle getting the slaves out ourselves.  Would that leave you with enough people?"  One eyebrow cocks.  "It just means no frontal assault against the Hutts, and this group seems pretty good at improvisation." 

Rhijans gave a sniff...on a more demonstrative person, it might have been a snort.  "Given the way we operate in this sector, a frontal assault on the Hutts would be a bad approach to start with.  Even if we got in and out intact, you don't slap the Hutt Syndicate in the face and walk away.  We'd be hiding from the Empire AND the Hutts, at that point.  And the Hutts are willing to devote resources to chasing us down that the Empire deems as beneath their dignity..."  He shrugged.

"Whatever we do against the Hutts is going to have to be subtle, fast, and as anonymous as we can possibly make it.  The best-case scenario would be to pin the blame on the Ubese and then we'd take care of two problems in one shot, but that could be a lot trickier than it sounds."  His lips pursed for a moment, and then he shook his head.

"Tactically, it's more important to locate the spy.  Any and every operation that takes place with any support from this base becomes a potential death-trap as long as the potential for it to be leaked is still present.  I know that means that the slaves could potentially be sold and dispersed and we'd lose the chance to free them all in one shot...possibly even lose the chance to ever find all of them...but a lot more than fifty lives might be lost if we send personnel into a meat-grinder where they're not only trying to infiltrate a Hutt operation, but they're also going in there with Imperial knowledge of the operation."  The notion of the slaves being stuck in slavery, under the 'tender ministrations' of the Hutts, was visibly repulsive to him, but his own reasons for wanting to go after them were strongly personal...and he'd learned a long time ago that things went very wrong when you took such situations too personally.  Mathematically, the spy was the bigger risk, to him.

He turned to the Colonel.  "That said, if you decide the slaves have to be the top priority, I'm in."  He paused, and added, "If we could just figure out some way to turn the operation into a bait-and-switch...feed different personnel here in the base misinformation about it, that would lead to Imperial action that was actually in no way related to our mission...it would at least help us narrow the search a bit."

"It should be easy enough to feed misinformation to people." Kourene replies with a nod, "There are people I know I can trust to handle that, Collas here," he waves a hand towards the aide, "is one of them."

"I believe I'll send you to visit Oomba, but it won't be today.  You'll need a pilot and, unfortunately they're all out right now on damage limitation duty.  That's why Jalt isn't here, I had to send him to move some equipment to make it harder for the Imperials to find it, even if they've been told exactly where it is."

He leans back in the chair, steepling his fingers before him, "With luck, I should have somebody available tomorrow.  In the mean time I'd recommend getting some rest.  I also want you to run any plan past me before you leave."

"Is there anything any of you want to add?"