On the Run

Setting

One year before the Battle of Yavin (34:7:7) on the planet Brentaal (Cormond and Imperial Garrison base).

Characters

Private Dorn Belu, Lieutenant Oleander Sarin, Sergeant Evan Teague, Major Dagon Tong, and Corporal Shawn Veldn.

Swift, vicious, brutal … those were guiding tenants for Dagon Tong’s operations. They always had been. He had done fine works for the Empire as far as the results spoke. Getting those results had been unbelievably bloody work, but the work had always gotten done. The Ringali Shell was all but begging for the Empire to sink roots and protect them from the terrorists that had waged a bloody war in their cities on their citizens. It made this trip a pleasant one. For the first time since entering the sector, he could join his squad and relax, because they were being shipped out. If any of them had official Army files, they would have been commentated heartily for their actions. The safe house was in one of the shadier sides of the capital city of Cormond, not far from the Spicer's Folly, a one-story structure with seven rooms, a kitchen, bathroom, common area, and four bedrooms. It had been a cheap purchase, particularly after things started blowing up once a week in Cormond.

Tong was no more than a block away when he heard the first shots. Though it was a seedy neighbor hood, the increasing patrols of Stormtroopers had helped halt such overt acts of violence, and if there were no sirens going off, and no shouts shortly, that certainly would not be good. As he turned the corner, eyes still searching over the edifices, looking for the source of the shooting, he realized that the shrieks and explosions were coming from his destination. Two armored troop carriers were parked in the street across from the house, lights flashing to indicate a police action. He recognized that part instantly. He just did not know why they would be involved in such in his safe house. Because of the nature of their operations, and the fact that they were commandos, from the black ops portion of the army, this address was known only to the high command of the sector. And they had placed orders in all the files that any action taking in this part of the city was to be cleared by them first, or so they had told Tong.

He crossed the street to get a better look at the action, since the blasters had ceased before he could have sprinted in and made any difference. Stopping at a holonet terminal under the guise of using it, he watched as four bodies were brought out on gurneys. The men on them were all dead. And they were all his. The other bodies removed were all Stormtroopers, a total of five of them.

The officer in charge of what appeared to have been a raid on his safe house moved to speak with his senior trooper, a conversation that Tong caught only parts of, but heard enough to concern him. "No sir, the Major wasn’t one of the men in there. Some how the intel went wrong at the end. We got the go order on the correct frequency and struck. I guess we just missed him…" Tong blinked slightly, and shook his head, before pushing back from the terminal, and continuing down the street, as if he had just stopped to make a call.

It was then that his comm started chirping. In his daze, and out of an almost morbid curiosity, he reached into the pocket of his jacket and answered the call. But when he activated the comm, it was already a dead line. No one on the other end of it, which meant the call had been solely for the purpose of tracking him. He had somewhat hoped for at least someone to tell him why his unit had been gunned down, but he knew why. With all the things that had been destroyed, all the people assassinated over the last year, they needed a scapegoat. And his unit happened to be perfect. No ties to the Empire, aside from him, and his army file was as sealed as it got anyway. His men had been right. This had not been like Fest or Mantoonie, and it certainly had not ended the same way.

Within ten seconds of him disabling the comm unit, a shout rose up from one of the APCs. "Got him. Thirty meters down the street! Move" The Stormtroopers started moving, at a quick jog, weapons at ready, but Tong did not hurry his steps, only continued down the block, as if nothing was wrong. It helped that he was dressed as a civilian, just simple grey combat jump suit and a jacket, and not the rather noticeable uniform of a army Major. When he could, he turned down into an alley, one which he knew was not a dead end, but would certainly slow the pursuit of twenty armored men. Still he kept walking, and for a moment, it seemed as if the pursuit would die off, because the platoon hustled past the alleyway. When they were out of sight, he dropped the comm unit in a waste bin, and continued on.

He had almost gotten to the other side when the word, "Halt!" was shouted down the alley at him. He kept moving, but the order was repeated, and a blaster round struck the wall next to him. Dagon’s feet stopped moving, and he turned his body so that the troopers could see his right profile, while his left hand eased the heavy blaster pistol from its holster. The synthetic sounding voice of the Stormtrooper echoed down the alley again, its source being a squad leader, leading six more down into the alley. "Major Dagon Tong. You are under arrest, under orders of Imperial High Command for the following crimes: terrorism against a neutral government, premeditated murder, the spread of seditious material to civilians with hope of inciting unlawful uprising against the Empire, and of treason in your defection to the unlawful Rebellion"

The last part caused Tong’s brow to rise in curiosity. "Defection to the Rebellion, you must be right out of your mind. But I will stand and answer these charges in a lawful court" The white helmet nodded, the chin piece almost touching the orange patch on his shoulder before he moved forward, one hand moving to his utility belt for a set of binders. As soon as that hand was occupied, Tong pivoted, the heavy blaster pistol coming up and the trigger snapping back. A thick red bolt screamed through the air, and then through the trooper’s helmet and skull, and out the other side.

The momentary confusion created was just enough for Tong to make it through the exit, partially obscured by a pile of debris. It was only a hole in a fence, but with the trash in front of the fence, it would be enough cover for the moment. Through the back half the ally was a row of doors, mostly for flop housing. The left door, second down was the one he wanted, and quick enough, and before he was seen by the pursuing troopers, he was through it, and into the hallway.

The spaceport was halfway across the city and he needed transportation to make it there quickly. There was going to be a lot of troops between him and it. The only good news was that there was no way that they could possibly know about Enzaki’s YT-2000. It was bought with credits in hand after they had set up on planet. No real name on the registration, and nothing about it to flag anyone’s attention … just a ship that had sat on the pad, being maintained. He could not shoot his way through. Even with his hacked down repeating slug thrower, pistol, and vibro blade. It would get him out of jams, but not out of the city. They had to know that the space port was his only way out, and that meant they would be expecting him to come from the direction of the safe house to the space port, so he would have to make his way around.

All these thoughts bounced through his head while the sound of doors being kicked in up and down the alley leaked into the hallway. He did not look for an exit right away, instead, moving to the stairwell and heading straight up for the roof.

From the roof he could get a fairly clandestine look at his situation. Three platoons of Stormtroopers had moved into a three-block area. And he was right in the center of it. There were more than a few routes over the rooftops that could get him out of the current perimeter, but they all headed directly towards the spaceport, where security would be tightening by the meter. He shook his head, and decided that it had to work before getting his first running leap and moving down the street by going to the next roof top, which fortunately was just a few feet shorter. He hit the roof rolling, and lay still for a moment to listen for any calls or alerts. He did not hear anything, and did not see any speeders scanning the rooftops yet, so he kept going. It took him another three rooftops to get into position where he could slip into an underground garage but make it appear he had moved in a different direction.

When he had managed that feat, it was simply a matter of shooting another Stormtrooper. There were plenty of them around, and as soon as the one he chose went down, he was on the run again. Slipping into the garage while the troopers ran past proved to be less challenging than he had feared, and that left the hard part of finding a speeder that would do. He needed one with a closed cockpit, to limit the chances of being spotted, while being easy enough to steal that he could get moving before the perimeter was shifted again, and he was stuck in the middle. He probably would not be able to escape the second one if they closed it quickly enough, because they knew he was not going to come in alive even at this point. Finally, after moving through two levels of the garage, he found a model that would fit his needs. In less than five minutes he had the thing moving through the structure and up onto the street.

Driving in the opposite direction of the spaceport, it was easy enough to see the checkpoints already being set up, but all of them were checking vehicles that were headed opposite him. He did not even get waved threw, they simply did not look into the speeder at the only one he had to pass through. Once fully out of perimeter, he turned the speeder so that he could skirt around the edges of the city. It would take almost three hours for him to make it around to the other side of the spaceport this way, but it was worth it. In that time, they would have half the city locked down, but would have lost track of him for the same amount of time. The longer the people looking for him had to be on their feet, and the longer they had false alarms and ghosts to chase, the better chance he had of getting to that ship, and off Brentaal.

The three hours he had expected had turned into six, and then to ten. He was within a kilometer of the space port, and at times, it would have seemed to most that that was as far as he was going to get to making it out of this alive. They had actually started a door-to-door search, starting at the spaceport, and moving outwards. The only problem with that was that after the first couple of kilometers, they would start to fan out to thin to stop a battalion from slipping through, let alone one person. But he was not several kilometers away, he was only one away. And it looked as if the ever-widening net would not be beaten by falling back and waiting for them to fan out. It had no guarantee that it would work, and it was a better than average bet that there were already checkpoints set up behind to prevent such things.

Instead, he simply got out off the cockpit of the speeder after parking it at a meter, and depositing the correct credits, slid under the vehicle after making sure no one was watching. The underside had a few landing skids which kept the repulsor engines from resting on the ground, and there was a bit of space just above those skids, between the struts, that he knew he could fit into without too much trouble. After some pulling and adjusting, he managed to literally hide himself in the body of a speeder, and wait out the patrols. And though painfully slowly, the time did crawl by, and so did the patrols. First there was one ever five minutes, going over the same ground over and over, and then it was once every ten minutes, and then every half hour. Finally, it had been over two hours since the last one, and it was time to take a good long peek from under the vehicle. After almost ten minutes of just watching and listening, with no boots marching in time down the street, he slid from his hiding spot, and back into the speeder.

He knew there would still be checkpoints to get into the actual spaceport and there would be half as many troopers inside the port as there were over the whole city. Once he made it within a quarter of a kilometer, he parked the vehicle and walked the rest of the way.

On his way there, he stopped at a holonet terminal to check and see what the news was saying about the situation. The general populace had been told that there was a terrorist on the run, and to be on the look out for anything strange and unusual, but nothing more. No picture, not even a general description. That surprised him. He had thought they would try to use the people in general as part of the net. Maybe they did not want him to contact any civilians, and start making people ask questions as to why an army Major would be being hunted as a terrorist.

They also showed the pictures of the safe house, and his four dead men. For the first time that he could remember, Tong felt sorrow. The men that were being paraded around for being dead had been the closest things to friends that he had ever had. Granted, their common bond was that they were all soldiers, and good ones too, but it was enough, and more than he could remember in the past, even during his time with the Nulls. They were being called terrorists, which was a fair charge, but they were also doing what the Empire asked. He could not remember all the accolades that had been given for their actions, because three full planets did not need conquered, or persuaded to join, they begged to, and offered up incentive, made the Empire look better. Now they were being cast asunder, even after they were dead. The Mando’a teaching rushed back into his head, but he shook himself clear.

Back to business and he picked up the comm unit attached to the terminal, and draped the sleeve of his jumpsuit over the receiver before he made the call. "Hello, yes, is the Cormond Security Center? It is, well, I just thought you should know, I saw a man get out of a speeder, and crawl under it, right in a parking spot, and he has not come out for at least an hour" The officer on the other end of the comm was all too pleased to take the address and informed Tong that he had done a great duty as a citizen of Cormond, as well as a great service to the Empire.

The call did the trick. Foot traffic started flowing easily into the spaceport, while every speeder for three kilometers was checked from top to bottom, inside to out. It was a relatively simple matter of slipping past the one checkpoint, and making his way towards the bay that Enzaki had rented for the freighter. It was somewhat remarkable that there was not a guard on the ship, but he was glad for it. It meant they really had not managed to find out about it. He took a more casual gate to his step as he punched in the access code, and made his way up the ramp. After a second to glance down the corridors, he turned, and headed right for the cockpit, and once there, sat down in the chair.

A short sigh of relief escaped him and then came the sound of a blaster being cocked behind him. "Move and you’re dead Tong!" It was another Stormtrooper. Tong did as he was ordered and remained completely and utterly still while he waited for the next order, "Raise your hands, place them on your head, and stand up very slowly!" Again, Tong complied. "Now, turn around, face me, and get your knees on the deck!" Tong took a slow, easy breath as he complied, his dead brown eyes on the Stormtrooper and wondering why he had not swept the vessel before he relaxed. It was a mistake he was not prone to, but then, sorrow was not something he was exactly accustomed to either. "Good, now, produce the pistol you fired earlier," demanded the Stormtrooper. The heavy blaster pistol was pulled from its holster and set gingerly on the deck plate, before it was slid over to the trooper. "Good. Now, any other weapons you want to give up voluntarily before I search you?"

Dagon shook his head slightly, and let a small, cruel smile spread on his lips. "No, but you do know that this ship belonged to a demolition expert, don’t you? I tripped a dead man’s switch as soon as I heard your blaster click behind me."

The Stormtrooper seemed to pause, though it was difficult to tell anything that was going on behind the white and black face of the helmet, "You’re bluffing. No way you would do that on your only way out of here."

Tong shrugged slightly, keeping his eyes on the view plates of the helmet. "If you think I’m bluffing, go ahead and try and remove me from the cockpit, see what happens" A slight twitch had developed in the trooper’s elbow, a nervous tic. "So, now what do you do? I wont be turning it off for you, since I’m as good as dead already. Might as well be in a way I like."

The trooper waved with the barrel of his weapon towards the far side of the cockpit by the navigator’s chair, "Just sit right there. You move, I will blast you right away." Tong shrugged again, and moved to sit in the seat as ordered, and waited to see just what the trooper would do. Predictably, he had forgotten all about the fact that he could call for help. He was obviously rather new at this. Instead of calling for an expert or a bomb squad, he turned and tried to find the device on his own. When he found a blinking red light, that was enough, and he did call for help this time. "346B to Bravo Leader, I have the target at bay 2780, in an unregistered YT-2000 light freighter. A bomb has been activated and it has me trapped in the cockpit with subject. Requesting aid, over."

Tong could not hear the other end of the conversation, but he was sure that it had been good news for the trooper, because his stance relaxed just a bit. And that was when Tong struck, moving quickly from his chair, and sliding the vibro blade between the bottom of the helmet at the back, and the bio glove that went to the neck and down. Death was instantaneous, and Tong wasted no time in changing into the dead man’s gear. His own clothing was was stowed in the equipment pack the trooper had carried. Once ready, he called out on the comm to the same trooper the dead one had spoke to, "346B to Bravo Leader. Bomb counting down, clear the area, ten seconds to detonation."

With that, he did trip a ten second timer on the control panel, which Enzaki seemed to have installed and used on every other ship he had owned. The seconds afterwards were a dead sprint, and he just cleared the blast radius when the ship exploded into flames and left the remnants to burn so hot that the metal deck started to warp and melt. He could not even see the body of the dead trooper or what was left of it in the cockpit. That simple fact would have them hunting for at least an hour and give him time and opportunity to escape the spaceport, because there was no way he was getting off planet from here.

The spaceport was closed. And with it, his primary escape route. He had to stir things up again. And worse, he had to do it in a new location … some place that they would never expect, and were not ready for. It meant that the vornskr had to go back to its den, which had turned into a Rancor’s lair. But Tong did not dwell much on the dangers of returning to the garrison. He simply knew that no one would expect the sensor and communications array to explode there. And if they did, it would utterly cripple the hunt for him. It would mean of course that the space port would remain closed, but there were other cities, and though it would take almost two hours over land to reach them, there was no way the orbiting fleet could shut down and monitor the entire bulk of the departing ships. Even infiltrating the garrison would not be all that hard. Not dressed as a Stormtrooper, and certainly not at shift change.

The hunt for him had gone on for almost ten hours and the transport speeders were already lining up. A simple radio call to find the rally point for Bravo platoon got him to the correct transport. The ride back was filled with chatter. Even a few questions tossed his way from the men who thought him to be one of their own. "So no kid, you broke and ran like a scalded womp rat when that ship started ticking, didn’t you?" it was one of the more experienced Stormtroopers, who had probably been in the same platoon for more than a year.

Tong did his best to impersonate the voice of the man he had killed aboard Enzaki’s freighter, adding a bit of a defensive tone, "You saw all the stuff they pulled out of that safe house in the south east quadrant. They had enough ordinance and arms to start their own war. When Tong said there was a bomb, and pointed out the switch that armed it, I wasn’t sticking around. Tong went through a bolthole built into the co-pilot’s chair. I figure he died in the ship’s engineering spaces. Would you have stayed, and melted into the damned deck?" That shut the veteran Stormtrooper up, because everyone in that shuttle knew they would not have. Some were even impressed that the rookie had tried to bring down the Major all on his own, even if no one would say it.

The Storm Commandos were spit on generally by the regular troops, but like any other special unit, they were also feared and respected for their capabilities. The malice came from the special nature of their missions and the fact that they seldom fought as standard frontline troops. The average Stormtrooper simply felt that the commandos did not face the same sort of dange, and that they were unduly arrogant. They did not wear the same armor, they varied their weapons greatly, and often as not were not seen in actual Imperial armor or uniform.

After the transport returned to the garrison, Bravo platoon was dismissed to grab chow and a few hours of sleep. Unless Tong’s body was found, or he was arrested, the manhunt would go on indefinitely, and the constant rotation would keep those looking for him fresh. It also gave Tong the few hours he would need to sabotage the key equipment and allow him to escape the city.

While the rest of his supposed squad mates made their way back to the bunks or the chow lines, he moved off to the armory. The supply sergeant on duty barely paid the Stormtrooper armor a second glance when Tong stepped up to his desk, "Sergeant, I have a verbal request from Sergeant Revan for two cases of demolition charges."

That gave the supply sergeant a pause. "And did Sergeant Revan tell you exactly what he needed so many charges for?" Tong was ready for that one. He knew Revan enough to know he would prepare his men adequately, and with the explosion earlier, would want to teach the men as much as he could about safe disposal of them, from disarming them to controlling the extent of the explosions. "He said he wanted to go over EOD procedures with his men and as well have stock on hand for EOD purposes in the field. Apparently the fugitive Tong has already used explosives once, and the Sergeant just wants to make sure his men are ready incase they run into them again."

The supply sergeant nodded. He knew that Sergeant Valo Revan’s men were the best on the base, and that they would probably be the ones called in if anyone managed to corner the renegade major. Under the power of such logic, the supply sergeant disappeared back into the armory, and returned with a hover cart, the requested cases on top of it, and a datapad. "Just sign for them and make sure the Revan gets them immediately, because I don’t want that hard ass in here barking at me."

Tong nodded and took the datapad and input the name of a Stormtrooper he remembered from his countless hours of paper work during the previous months. When he had finished, he gave a nod and replied, "Will do, Sergeant!" With the cart in front of him, he moved off, back into the corridor. He needed a tech’s uniform, but that would not be too hard to secure. He simply pushed his cart into a storage closet, and covered it with other supplies, such as toiletries, and stowed it at the back of the closet. Once done, he moved back into the corridors, and towards the laundry service, as if he were doing nothing more than patrolling during a time of heightened alert. The personnel there did not pay even look up from their work, only continued starching and pressing uniforms. Stealing a tech’s coveralls was all too easy, and with it stuffed underneath his chest plate, he returned to the same supply closet to change.

Oleander Sarin was loosing his mind. He was sure that having Tong listed as a criminal and a renegade could be a gift worthy of the Emperor’s own giving, but he just could not fathom a way to use it. It was a new experience for him. Normally, spinning something this consequential came without a second thought, but now he was stuck. He was absolutely sure, however, that if used properly, it could help quell the problems both on Brentaal, and the near open revolt that gripped Ralltiir. Obviously, the murders of Jard and his family would be pinned on the Major, and it would be stated that he had gone renegade even before then. But there were other things that could possibly be useful here. Showing the Empire’s willingness to police its own, and the lengths gone to capture those who break the tenants of the Empire could easily gain them ground in this situation. And as the COMPNOR and Brentaal front man, it was his job to report these things to the populace. Which was why he found himself in the communications center. It would be a quick news briefing, explaining to the good citizens the current situation in greater detail, and the best way to make the Empire appear as a shining symbol of peace and civilization that Sarin had seen since he had been sent out here. He only had to wait for the equipment to be set up, and for the appropriate time. In less than an hour, most of the citizens of Cormond would be home from work, and paying attention to holonet flashes as to why the Imperial military was in action all across the city, and why the spaceport was closed.

As he sat at a vacant desk, hammering out an outline for his upcoming speech on his datapad, the door to the communications room opened, and a tech pushed a hover cart in, with a box of what must have been spare parts, as well as toolboxes on it. He nodded to a few of the other techs, and murmured something about being there for routine checks of the transmission feeds to the central broadcasting antenna. None of the other techs in the room paid it much mind, and at first, neither did Sarin. There was nothing extraordinary about the man as he went about his business, opening access panels on the central terminals, and leaning in. Once at each of the main terminals he would turn and pull something from the large box, and lean back inside the terminal. The process seemed to be rather mechanical and boring, and did not hold Sarin’s attention long. Almost before it had begun, he was focused back on the datapad, but was forced to stop. There was something about that tech, something very familiar. The man had finished what ever it was he was doing and had stood up to retrieve his cart, and by then, Sarin was openly staring. He was sure it could not be. No one would be that foolish. No matter what the circumstance, even Tong would not come back into the garrison. Not now. And yet, the more Sarin looked, the more he was sure that it was the renegade major.

The resemblance was strong enough to pull him from his desk and out of the broadcast control room to move closer, and actually block the man’s path so he could get a better look. And then he saw it … the trio of scars on the cheek that stood out among the others. Even with a hat obscuring the tech’s eyes, and half his face, Sarin knew that he had just caught the major. The politician started shaking, and went for his issued side arm, which he had not drawn since his last forced qualification, which he had barely passed.

But the weapon came out as he tried in his sternest voice to address the man, "Major Tong! You are under arrest" The tech did not look around, only moved his left hand into his coveralls and pulled a strange looking weapon. Sarin was dead before he could level his own weapon on his target.

On any other day, Tong would have been surprised that Sarin would have recognized him from any other tech wandering around the garrison … but not today. Today, he had been waiting for the deck to fall out from under him all over again. And when he had managed to plant charges on the sensor array itself, and the control terminals for it without incident, he knew it was coming sooner than later. And the feeling only got stronger as he moved from the sensor array to the communication center. By the time he had finished planting the charges he needed to there, he truly expected to see an entire platoon marching through the door. And yet, it did not happen. Instead, he planted the remaining charges and was on his way out the door, almost in disbelief at the ease at which he had made it through when Sarin had stepped in his way. That event in itself was not all that surprising, he figured the man would just want to be on his way, and was not going to wait for a lowly tech to push his cart through. Instead, he had blocked Tong’s way and drew down on him. As soon as he had seen the man’s hand go for the weapon on his hip, Dagon had done the same. The difference in time from initial movement to having the muzzle clear and into firing position marked the difference between the politician and the professional soldier. It was no contest, and the first three shot burst loosed struck Sarin in the forehead. The suppressor screwed onto the barrel would have disguised the assault completely if not for the initial shout of identification and declaration of intent. But because the politician had a big mouth and a loud, if high and squealing voice, the entire room knew who he was. Which was why he quickly leaned forward and pulled one of the grenades that he had taken from the Stormtrooper that he had killed in the spaceport.

The pin was pulled and the fragmentation grenade tossed over his shoulder and into the corner where the holocam was mounted. He knew he had three seconds on the fuse before detonation, and another fifteen after that before the garrison responded, but he knew that he could handle the situation in that amount of time, so long as Sarin had not radioed in before he had tried to arrest him. Instead of going for cover, Tong pivoted, and began firing, three shot bursts from the weapon making as much noise when they struck their targets, the chest or back of all three techs in the room, as they did when they were fired. He managed to dispatch all three techs just before the grenade went off, but just barely. Luckily, there was enough obstructing the explosion that he did not catch any of the shrapnel. It had been a calculated risk, but one that paid off, because he simply grabbed his toolbox containing the rest of his equipment, and hurried off. He only needed fifteen or so meters between himself and the communications room to ensure that he would be safe from the detonation.

The grenade had drawn the attention of the surrounding patrols, but because of the short duration of violence in the camera’s eye, the fact that it was a tech committing it might have gone unnoticed, especially in the initial reports. It proved true when the incoming Stormtroopers were more focused on getting to the comm center than detaining anyone. They seemed to be under the impression that he was still in the comm center, which suited Dagon just fine.

It took him only a minute or so to reach a safe distance, and when he did, he quietly reached into the toolbox and activated the detonator. When he did, the entire garrison shuddered, the sound of the charges could probably be heard over a kilometer away. But the result was well worth the temporary hearing loss that Tong experienced. It meant that all the communications for the Imperials in Cormond had been cut. From Stormtrooper to Stormtrooper all the way to the base  commanding officer trying to reach Admiral Rodney in orbit, no one would be using a comm unit. With the sensors down, he could steal a speeder and be off, without anyone being able to track him.

So the false tech returned to the storage closet, and became a false Stormtrooper again. The persistent static that echoed in his ears was re-assuring, because it meant that he had succeeded. They could not communicate, and there fore, could not coordinate. It left Tong the simple task of walking out to the motor pool, mounting one of the speeder bikes and ride off. Which was exactly what he did. He moved off to the motor pool and mounted a confiscated swoop bike. He was expecting to be pursued at least once, but it did not happen. He moved easily through the city, south, and actually managed to leave the city without incident, and for the first time that day, felt like he might have truly won, that he had made it to safety. Not the illusion that he had experienced on Enzaki’s freighter, but real safety. Dressed as a Stormtrooper, he looked as if he were simply trying to get a message to another unit operating further south.

An hour outside of the city, Tong had truly decided he was free and clear, at least for another nine hours. When he reached another spaceport, it would be a different story, but that would be handled when he arrived. It was almost pleasant, so long as his mind remained blank. A few times, the images of the results of the raid on the safe house had slipped into his mind. But those were pushed away quickly, even faster than the stretchers bearing the bodies of his men had been pushed into the transports.

Maintaining a blank mind in such circumstances proved to take up all his focus, and it ended in an ambush. The hypnotic affect of the terrain whipping by, the forced blankness of his mind, it all merged to ensure that he did not realize until much too late the seeker rocket that had been launched at him from somewhere off to his east, the exhaust trail seeming to rise from the desert dunes. He knew at once there was no way to fully avoid the upcoming explosion, and so he only sought to minimize the damage inflicting upon him. He had no way of knowing if the seeker had been simply targeted at the movement, his body heat, or at the swoop itself, so he simply turned the bike towards the incoming missile. It took only three seconds for the impact, and just before it, Tong jammed the nose of the swoop bike down into the sand and activated the brakes. The maneuver had two profound effects. The First was that it completely stopped the momentum of the bike, and made the chances of the seeker coming straight for it actually missing decrease dramatically. The second was that it catapulted him forward and towards a dune. He was lucky in the timing, because he barely cleared the incoming missile, and after having only traveling two meters, the seeker struck the swoop bike. As he shot through the air, he felt the jarring concussion of the explosion, and the sting of shrapnel as it found the gaps in his stolen armor.

The impact with the sand dune was no kinder, and it further rattled his mind and body. His mind was all but shut down in the haze he found himself in, his only thought was to get to cover. A group of rocks only four meters away seemed more inviting than anything he had seen in quite some time. He crawled as quickly as he could, but did not raise his abdomen from the ground more than an inch as he did, so as not to welcome a second shot in the event that the attackers had lost sight of him. Once nestled within the confines of the rock, his back against stone, he went about readying weapons. As seconds passed, he slipped further and further into the haze. With each second, his mind proved more fogged, and by the time he had all three projectile weapons readied, he operated solely on instinct, as if he had drank too much. The E-11 and the Caliban Model X pistol were left to lie in the grit for the time being, and the repeating slug thrower taken up in both hands. None of them did any good as a pair of grenades came bouncing into the rock face, the first a cryoban and the second a glop. Perhaps if not for the injuries, the mental fog, or the concussion, he might have been able to escape the blast radius, but in his current state, when the grenades went off, he was completely incapacitated.

Sergeant Evan Teague stood in front of the Stormtrooper whose wrists were locked in binders, his weapon held low, but at the ready. He was flanked by the two remaining members of his squad. Corporal Shawn Veldn who had been with him since the start of the hostilities began on Brentaal. Private Dorn Belu had not seen action before this ambush, though his shot with the seeker had been dead on. The sergeant looked over the prisoner one more time in curiosity, "He’s not carrying a data disk in any special pouch. Just an equipment pack. Belu, watch him, Shawn, help me get this pack off of him. Maybe that’s where what ever he’s transporting is stowed there." Once they had the pack off and open, befuddlement sank in. "I can't imagine someone is actually on a swoop bike to deliver coveralls. Belu, go check that wreckages and see if there’s anything in that, because this certainly isn’t standard Stormtrooper gear."

Belu nodded and did as ordered, but found nothing, nothing at all, just the expected wreckage. He reported back to the other two with the news, "If there was anything on that bike that was important, it’s not going to be easy to spot now. That thing is utterly wrecked."

Teague nodded to that and then turned his attention fully back on the Stormtrooper. "Well, how about we un-hat him and find out just why he’s all the way out here? Go ahead Shawn," The corporal gave a nod, and leaned in to remove the helmet. The blank face of the Stormtrooper was lifted away and the face beneath had them all staring in disbelief.

"Is that..." Belu spoke first, but was cut off by Teague. "It’s Dagon Tong. Call for an evac. We just bagged the best bit of intel we could have ever hoped for."

Shawn only blinked, "You don’t think he’s the terrorist the holonet has been going on about all day do you?"

Teague looked thoughtful for a moment, "I don’t know. I guess we’ll find out when we get him up to the station." Nods of agreement were given as they moved to load the unconscious and bound man into the speeder. Escaping the planet was not too terribly difficult, blockade-runners operated almost constantly to get supplies down to the ground troops, and Tong was simply ferried to the space station aboard one. The trip made far easier by a lack of Imperial sensor capability as well as no coordination with planetary observers to the ships in orbit.