Chapter 2: Forges of Ithyari

[Vergere 1]

"Oh!" She hesitated, and watched him for another minute. "How do you eat so much?" She looked simply amazed. "Anyways. It's an Imperial planet, the native population is Ithyarian, which is human, just like Corellians are human, hence one of the main reasons it took to Imperial doctrine so well. There are very few sentient non-humans on planet, minus slaves gathered from other planets to help with the work in factories. There are some near-human populations on planet, including a small population of Chiss. As far as I know, everyone speaks Basic."

She hesitated, looking at her food for a moment, before shaking her head. "That is about the extent of my knowledge on the people of the planet." She looked back up at Kaden. "I'm sorry. If I get a further update, I'll try to let you know."

Edited August 24, 2007 by Vergere

[Mara 29]

"No, it's fine. I was just trying to figure out if I would need to brush up on any languages."

Not having anything else to say at the moment, he returned to his meal.

[Vergere 1]

Finally remembering to eat, she took the bite of food she'd been meaning to eat earlier. "You're a linguist?"

Edited August 24, 2007 by Vergere

[Mara 29]

He swallowed a bite and looked back up to her. "No. Not really. I've just picked up some various languages... over the years."

Kaden wasn't sure how much more he wanted to get into about his past and his former life, just as it was with his squadron mates whom he knew better than this woman. But, again, she was Intel, so she might know more than she let on. He would have to stay alert and not give out too much, to see what exactly she knew and how much of his file she had read and to not give away that he knew that she knew.

Edited August 24, 2007 by Mara

[Vergere 1]

She just smiled, making the corners of her eyes crinkle again in amusement, and noded, returning to hear meal. "Fair enough."

Edited August 24, 2007 by Vergere

[Mara 29]

Kaden nodded and continued eating.

Edited August 24, 2007 by Mara

[Vergere 1]

Eating at a much slower pace than Kaden, she asked after a time, "Did you have any more questions you needed answered?"

Edited August 24, 2007 by Vergere

[Mara 29]

He glanced up at her, thinking awhile while chewing. Then he swallowed and shrugged. "No, I don't think so. Everything was pretty straight forward in the briefing."

Edited August 24, 2007 by Mara

[Vergere 1]

"Good." She still had a look of quiet amusement on her features, a look she hadn't lost since she gave the briefing, a perpetual state of hers, and she returned to her meal.

Edited August 24, 2007 by Vergere

[Mara 29]

He wondered about what she was thinking about but didn't give it a second thought, going instead to finish off his plate of food.

[Ender 8]

Jaim tapped a salute to Tak and staggered out of the briefing room. He eventually made it back to his room after two wrong turns, and dug a durasteel case out from under his rack.

Keying in the code to deactivate the tear gas traps, he opened the case and took stock of its contents, making sure none of it was missing. Satisfied with his inventory, he began removing some necessities. Fake ID's, a few thousand credits in Imperial currency, and a small sack of spice came out and into Jaim's rucksack. Closing the case and reactivating the trap, he securely stowed the case to its former place. He then took out another case, stowed on top of his dresser. From this he removed two heavily modified holdout blasters and his breakdown KX-60 that had served him so well on board the Revenant. Satisfied with their condition, Jaim then changed into civ clothes, a black leather jacket with blue collared shirt and brown pants, with his well-broken in nerfhide boots. After concealing the two holdouts in his belt and the KX-60 into his rucksack, Jaim checked his chrono. 0600. Nice. Grabbing his empty mug, Jaim departed to find Tak.

[Vergere 1]

Dryly, "Time for seconds?" She raised an eyebrow in Kaden's direction before reaching into her rucksack and pulling out a datapad to examine for a few minutes.

[Drake 53]

They almost collided with one another coming around a corner. Tak was reviewing the datapad again, reading coordinates and names and saving them to memory. He spotted Jaim from the edge of his vision and stepped aside right before they collided.

"Hey Jaim. What's up?" he asked.

Edited August 25, 2007 by Drake

[Mara 29]

He downed his glass of juice. "No. Actually, this is my second breakfast today."

[Vergere 1]

She just shook her head. "Amazing." She glanced over her datapad for a few minutes before rising to leave. "Have a pleasant rest of your morning, Flight Officer Staal." She nodded and grabbed her things, headed to the hangar to double check that she had everything in her bag she needed for the trip as well as making sure she wasn't late.

[Mara 29]

He nodded, waving at her. Finishing up the rest of his meal, he got up and disposed of his tray. He glanced at his chrono. Just after 0600. He decided to go back to the hangar and his X-wing to see how Artie was doing with Szen's droid and to do some more checks on his ship.

[Vergere 1]

Looking like a nicely dressed civilian, Brier sat on an upside-down crate near the shuttle, keeping to herself for the time being, and went through the random items in her bag. It didn't feel like she was trying to be reserved or removed from the people in the hangar, but more that she didn't seem comfortable walking up to people and just talking when she knew she made more than a few people uncomfortable, both by being an officer of higher rank and being in Intel. She therefore decided to let people come to her at first, not wanting to cause more tension than necessary by her presence.

[Mara 29]

Artie beeped upon seeing Kaden approaching.

"Hey, Artie. Did you get the droid all checked out?"

He tootled.

"Good. And no funny business?"

Artie blew a raspberry at him.

"Okay, okay," he held up his hands. "I trust you. But this is for someone else. Szen is new, and we don't want anything happen to her."

All he got was an answering short beep. Kaden took it to mean that Artie had done his job, but didn't like Kaden for being so untrusting of him. The droid started to spin on its wheels and turn away.

"Hey.. why don't we get you all charged up? You probably need a power boost before the mission."

Artie turned back to Kaden and twittered happily.

He smiled and lead his droid off to a side of the hangar to power him up.

[Andy 60]

Aston entered the hangar, munching on a breakfast sandwich he had concocted in the cafeteria on his way down. He spotted Bucket over by his X-wing, chasing off one of the maintenance crews R2 units, and shook his head.

He headed over to the ship, "Everything okay, Bucket?"

The little astromech tootled a short reply to the affirmative.

[Vergere 1]

Brier smiled faintly as she witnessed the conversation between the pilot and his astromech before putting all her things away, satisfied that she was good to go for this mission.

[Radioactive Isotope 29]

Atuarre headed down to the hangar bay to retrieve her ammo. Riamor hadn't been kidding when he'd said they'd stocked up. In all her years in the Rangers, she had never had this much ammo for a single mission. As she was preparing to head back to the lounge to wait, she heard a few of the early-bird Mynock's reactions to the Revenants handiwork on their X-wings.

"Emperor's black bones, they're pink!"

"Blast those Revenants. This means war."

Atuarre stiffled a laugh as she hurried away. She could hardly imagine what the other squad would come up with in retaliation, but was suddenly glad the Revenants were leaving soon. She would have to tell Layla about this the next time she saw her wingmate. The Zeltron would be pleased to hear it.

[Ender 8]

"Just wanted to hand you your ID. I'll give the rest out when we assemble."

Jaim pressed the ident badge into Tak's hand, and headed for the hangar.

[Drake 53]

"Thanks. See you in the hangar."

Tak pocketed the ID badge and continued down the corridor. Once at Layla's room, he buzzed and waited for her to open the door.

[Rogue 4]

"If it's Tak you already missed all the fun." Layla smirked to herself as she pulled on her boots. She stood, grabbing her bag and walking over to the door.

Layla leaned in the doorway when she opened it, smirking at him. the pink color had been removed from her skin, leaving a natural tanned apearance. Her red-brown hair had been temporarily dyed a darker brown, and her clothes were definatly un-Zeltron. She wore brown boots over white leggings, and a dark green top belted loosely around the waist. "I'm already human." She winked her gray eyes, the only thing about her that remained the same.

[Drake 53]

Tak's eyes widened at the new look. "Damn, girl. Well this is certainly different." He moved up to Layla until their bodies touched and wrapped an arm around her waist. "You sure you don't want me to check if you missed any spots?"