Chapter 3: Archaic

[Drake 53]

He looked away from the screen at Mrs. Nasrin's harsh words. She was frustrated and angry, to be sure, but her accusation hit him harder than she knew. Tak blamed himself for Layla's capture. He knew about the bounty even before he knew Layla and yet he still came up short when it came to protecting her.

When he looked back up, Layla's cousin was sitting there along with little Ayana. Tak gave them a weary smile. "I apologize for this. However, the bounty hunter, contracted by Argos, seems to be an exceptional tracker. Despite countless security checks and firewalls, he still managed to determine the location of our secret base. Only then did Argos send the mercenary fleet after us. They slipped past our defenses and attacked. With half of our staff on leave and the base in chaos, the bounty hunter managed to capture Layla. I fought him personally but was eventually...incapacitated."

Before Layla's cousin could say anything, Tak added, "Now I want to assure you, and your family, that the Defense Force is doing everything they can to both rescue Layla and put an end to Archaic once and for all. Doing so will assure Layla's future safety, the security of a future base, and the secrecy of her family." He looked briefly at Ayana. "That said, I would suggest you take extra precautions with her. I know Layla would never divulge such secrets...however, I think it might be safer for her...for all of you to go some place where not even Layla would know about until Deign Argos is dealt with."

[Mara 29]

When everyone in the room starting moving around, Kaden stood up and headed towards the door, wanting to find where the sims were. Artie trailed along behind him, a little slower than usual.

[Rogue 4]

Lira Nasrin shifted to hold Ayana better, the calm little girl twisting her hair around her finger until it curled tightly. She looked just like Layla, with the exceptions of her lighter pink skin and violet eyes. If her skin were a few shades lighter, and her hair not so starkly red, Ayana might have even passed for human. "Mamma home?" She asked the woman holding her, in a sweet curious voice.

"Not yet sugar," Lira told her. "Mamma got a little held up with the bad guys, but she can't wait to come see you, okay?" She pointed to the camera. "See that man there? He's Mamma's friend. He's going to make sure she comes home safely. But she will, because what does mommy do?"

"Show the bad guy's who's boss." Ayana said, proud of herself for remembering.

Lira smiled and kissed her forehead. "That's right. Say hello to Lieutenant Beskar."

Ayana waved to him excitedly. "Hi Beskar!"

[Drake 53]

Tak couldn't help but smile. Ayana looked just like her mother. "You can call me Tak," he said. "And I promise to bring you your mommy myself once we've shown those bad guys who's boss."

[Rogue 4]

"Kay," She looked to her cousin. "Lira, I have a cookie?"

"Grandma will probably say no, so go ask Grandpa." Lira told her. "Say goodbye to Mr. Tak."

"Bye Mr. Tak! You show the bad guys!" She waved. When Lira put her down she went running out of view.

Lira sighed, crossing her arms. "Kids. So there's a team heading to Corellia then?"

[Drake 53]

Tak nodded. "That's correct, ma'am. Unfortunately I'm not at liberty to discuss the mission in detail, even though this is a secure comm, due to confidentiality. However, I can assure you that I...we will do everything in our power to bring her back."

[Rogue 4]

"It's just Lira." She said, waving a hand dismissively. "And I'm sure you will. She told me all about you."

[Drake 53]

Takeshi raised an eyebrow. He was pretty good at spotting a Zeltron Lead but the quality of the video comm left some to be desired. Either Layla had actually told her cousin all about him or she was bluffing and trying to get him to admit to any relationship.

To be safe, he said, "She told you how much she values our friendship? Aww. That's just like Layla. Anyway, I would love to continue speaking of my personal life, however this is an official comm so I will have to cut it short. I wish you and your family safety and the next time I speak with you, it will be with Layla there."

[Rogue 4]

"Of course Lieutenant Beskar." Lira said with a grin. "And because I know you're wondering, she said you were the Lieutenant with the cute rear end. Best of luck!" She turned the comm off quickly.

[Drake 53]

Once the image returned to the menu screen and the comm call ended, Tak smiled and said to himself, "That is just like Layla."

He got up and left the room.

[Winters 0]

Paperwork, paperwork, paperwork... Cale thought. It was starting to get really late at night and he was getting tired. "A couple hours of sleep should be fine." He looked at his chrono for what would happen the next day.

"Meetings... Oh, Talon Karrde, that'll be good. Hope he has some choco for me..." He smiled. And some info... He looked at the holo of him and Nasha. He smiled and looked around. His desk was less cluttered, stacks of data chips were in a box to be filed away, people who lost their lives in the past raid; others were to be cleared and reused again. He walked out of his office and into the hall, the empty and dark hall that was a bit depressing. He reached into his pocket and got his music player, putting his earbuds in and started to listen to some music. Gil Emil he thought. He searched for the jazz musician that he loved and relaxed as he walked to his quarters.

"Tomorrow is another day." He wispered to himself.

[Princess 35]

Nima nodded at Szen. "Looks like Kaden's heading towards the sims, so why don't you suit up and take him on? Then I can judge your reaction times in a starfighter. Just give me a few minutes to change into something a little less comfortable and I'll be in the control room to observe."

[Mara 29]

After a couple of wrong turns, Kaden and Artie finally found the simulation room. It was much larger than the one they had on base, which was to be expected, and about a fourth of the units were already occupied.

Kaden gestured to Artie. "Why don't you hook into that one in the corner? I'll go get some gear."

His droid quietly moved over to the sim indicated as Kaden went over to a side room to get ready.

[Ayingel 24]

Szen laughed as she left the holding room and found her way to the sims. She found Kaden and snuck up behind him. "Care for a challenge?" She smiled as he turned around.

[Mara 29]

Kaden smiled and picked up a helmet. "Sure." He nodded towards the corner were Artie was setting up. "One on one?"

[Andy 60]

Out of boredom, Aston followed the signs to the sims. He saw Kaden and Szen getting ready, and set himself up in one of the machines. Once inside he took out his datapad and plugged it into the console.

"This is going to be fun", he said to himself with a grin.

[Ayingel 24]

"Sounds good to me." Szen finished getting ready and waited for Kaden before picking out a machine.

[Mara 29]

Kaden popped his helmet on and went over to Artie to plug himself into the console. He got inside and closed everything around him and brought up the sim.

"Let's see.... a nice medium-level one-on-one..." he scrolled through the various programs and highlighted one.

"Program M-344, Szen," Kaden called through the comm before clicking it off and only letting Artie in. It wouldn't do to let his enemy know what he was thinking.

He reached down and started flipping all the switches to bring his X-wing up to ready mode.

[Rogue 4]

As everyone began dispersing, Nat knew that he had some work ahead of him. He didn't know how the Captain was going to plan on inserting them into Corellia, but he knew that Corellian space was not a friendly place for anyone from the New Republic. CorSec was controlled by the Diktat, and the Diktat had been replaced by a regional Moff who had decided to keep the title for himself. So the problem became, how are they going to sneak twelve X-wings, the clearest 'Rebel' symbols he could think of, onto the world unnoticed. Especially since not all of their squadron's X-wings had survived the attack.

The other option was to bring civilian ships. Or to hide the X-wings in a modified transport. But to do that you'd have to have time to modify transports, and time wasn't on their side. They had no idea what Deign Argos had in store for Officer Nasrin.

They were also going to need local civilian clothes, in the sizes and styles of the squadron. And he was going to need to check up on the local laws to make sure that everything went smoothly. And he knew that would be time consuming. He also needed to contact Layla's family to inform them of what happened.

As he headed towards acquisitions he made a pit stop by Officer Beskar's room to see if he could enlist his help. He caught him as he was leaving his room. "Lieutenant Beskar, do you have a moment?"

[Princess 35]

Nima stashed her skimpy outfit from Ryloth in a spare locker in the locker room. She was so glad that no one had realized that she'd been wearing Lt Riamor's jacket. She had to think of him as Lt Riamor now that they were back on duty, though she was wondering about those moments of closeness in the floating rock gardens, especially when she'd broken down crying and he'd rubbed her back in comfort. She shook her head abruptly, couldn't think about that now. She slipped a flight suit on and headed to the control room of the sim center so that she could evaluate Szen for combat.

[Drake 53]

Takeshi looked up at the blue-skinned Twi'lek. Now that they were alone, he could expect some form of berating from Nat. Most likely about his secret identity or some unimportant flaw in procedure during the raid on the base. Instead of voicing his inner sigh, Tak shrugged and said, "I always do for you, Lieutentant. What's up?"

[Rogue 4]

"I know you're expecting me to chew you out for lying to us about your identity, or for making the call to stay on the ground during the raid, but right now Lieutenant Besk--Skirata, there's no time for that." Nat was resisting an inward sigh himself. He believed that discipline was a necessity, and honesty about such things as Takeshi had kept secret a must. "When we get Officer Nasrin back we'll all have a sit down and talk about protocol. Right now though there's some preparations to make, and I doubt I can do them all on my own."

[Andy 60]

Aston sliced into the simulation system and looked at what Kaden and Szen were up to. M-344? More like programme M-boring. He rolled his eyes, trust Kaden.

He began looking through the lists of available ships to see what would liven up the simulation. CR90? Too small... VSD? Maybe... Hmm, Death Star? Maybe throw in a couple of those later...

He set his console to display Kaden's data and waited for it to start before he did anything.

[Ayingel 24]

Szen felt the sim humming as she tuned it on. "M-344 it is." The console's lights indicated she was ready for flight. "Here we go." Szen smiled as she talked to herself. The sim droid indicated all systems go and she took off.

[Mara 29]

After takeoff, Kaden found himself in clear space with just the southern edge of a gas giant towards his port side. A small moon orbited it.

He tuned all his sensors to high, knowing that the other X-wing would be coming into view shortly.

Artie twiddled at him.

"No.. keep the shields normal for now." He took his fighter down in a lazy barrel roll away from the planet and into deeper space.