The Xenen Campaign ~ Quis Briefing

    Indy stepped up to the podium.  She'd done this before--briefed the men and women of the Aurora Force on a mission--but never on this grand of a scale.  The Xenen Campaign promised to last quite a while with systematic movement out from the city of Quis to other major cities, subduing or undermining the Imperial presence on the world every step of the way.  With a certain casual grace she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and cleared her throat.
    The murmur of conversation within the room died away within a few minutes.  Her gaze swept the room--so many familiar faces, some she had known since she had joined the New Republic, some longer.  How many would not return from Xenen?  How many would not return from the Kartuiin Sector?  She banished those thoughts from her mind and began to speak.  "Good morning, everyone.  For those of you who do not already know, we have been ordered into the Kartuiin Sector with the intent of bringing it into the New Republic.  Unfortunately, it seems that we will be employing force to meet these ends, and thus we are in serious need of solid intelligence on the Sector, which is in short supply.  That is why our first target will be Xenen, home to the largest repository of knowledge of the Kartuiin Sector in the galaxy.  Lights please."
    As the lights dimmed to one quarter intensity, Indy brought the    holoprojector on the briefing platform to life.  It displayed the slowly turning globe that was Xenen until she touched a control, causing the image to focus on the main continent and in further to a particular valley within a major mountain range.  "This is the Kinvou Valley, which is at the heart of the Kin Mountain Range.  It is located several thousand miles north of Xenen's equatorial regions and thus is a temperately cool area of the Calder continent."  She tapped another control and the image focused even closer, on a city that covered several hundred square kilometers of land at the heart of the valley.  "This city is Quis, home to the aforementioned repository of knowledge.  Of all of the data we have at the moment, the data on Quis is the most recent as we took great lengths to get some probes in orbit of Xenen so we could get this footage.
    "Quis covers approximately five hundred and eighty-eight square kilometers, not including Lake Tashanya.  It includes a garrison of about a thousand Imperial troops and trainees and local law enforcement numbers are sketchy, but it looks like about fifteen hundred.  These factors, most likely, will pose the greatest problem to this operation.  However, spaceport security is not tight and Customs officials are next to non-existent despite the number of people coming in and out of Quis--it's apparently been speculated that the reasons for such loose security are the large volumes of people coming in and out on a regular basis.
    "The younger of us will be posing as students planning to attend Serah University for the upcoming semester.  The rest will be the regular array of scholars, traders, and vacationers that Quis regularly sees.  I would like to stress the point that you CANNOT ATTACK ANY IMPERIAL FORCES UNLESS YOU ARE FIRED UPON.  If you are recognized and taken in, admit nothing; hold out and we will find you."
    Indy shut down the holoprojector as the lights came up again. "Your identities will be supplied to you shortly before insertion. Rally points will be assigned and directions will be found in your insertion packets.  Over the next week we will be either catching commercial transports or you will be assigned to several private flights from the Dashan. Are there any questions?"

    Expecting the usual mission questions, the question that was overheard over all the silence was of a man in the back, with his hand raised in the air, looking like something that a bantha had dragged in.
    "What was that soldier?" Indy replied, realizing that the person had never worked inside the AF before, and had somehow gotten by security when it was mission personnel only.
    "The name's 'Tyren Ivriss'... and I said... What's the flippin deal about not shooting any bloomin' Imps!?!" the black trenchcoat wearing figured said, strolling his way around the tables, and up to Indy's podium, a follower of his, looking rather threatening towards the rest of the AF'ers sitting in their chairs.
    The follower looked as bad as his leader, Tyren, wearing a red bandana himself and some duffle bag thrown over his shoulder.  A scar seemed to just glare at those watching him, his green eyes turning to them as if he knew their eyes were on him.
    Catching Nil's eyes on him, he turned to her and walked over to where she was sitting.  "Hey Beautiful.. So what'd it take to buy you a drink later?"  The man in the red bandana said giving her a sly smuggler smile.  He didn't really wait for her response, before turning back to Tyren as made his way towards Indy's podium, being sure to turn to Nil and giving her a wink and another smile.
    "Well Mr. Ivriss... This isn't meant to be a Imperial Killspree.. Just a search for information.. Who are you to come here and ask that?" Indy said, looking to security which was already making their way towards her and the two roughians.
    "Well Ain't that just Peachy... Guess We won't be needing any of these then..." Tryen said, pulling out a thermal detonator out of his trenchcoat and holding it in his hand, "will we Devison?"
    With a millisecond of time, all of security and most of the people in the room had withdrawn their blasters they'd been resting their hands on since the new comer to the meeting had entered.  Half aimed on Tryen and the rest on his companion Devison.
    "Well.. Guess it worked.. Everyone.. Please put away you're blasters.. It's just me.. Troy Nexus...This is just a disguise for the mission." Troy said through his disguise, pulling out his AF badge, and then turning to Devison and nodding.
    Nodding in return, and pulling a datadisk out of the bag, Devison threw it up to Troy, who loaded it into the datapad at the podium and loaded it into the overhead screen.
    "I've been talking with our people in the Lab.. And they've did some amazing work of making Myself.. and Deadmeet" he said, pointing to Devison, who in turn waved to the crowd.
    "Our lab people have found pretty much a way of changing our eye color with small sensors inside the iris, and also been able to give us faces of some past dead smugglers ID's found in the Dashan Imperial Files. Everyone else thinks they're missing, but since they won't be using their Smuggling ID's...I thought it'd be best if we put them to use." Troy continued, showing the faces of the past dead smugglers, which seemed to resemble Troy and DM's faces exactly.
    "Why put on the act in the briefing with a Thermal detonator?" Indy said looking to Alexandra who sat in the front and had been watching that familiar smile since Troy had come into the room as Tyren. Indy getting a confirming smile from Alexandra, proving it was Troy was all she needed to believe to call off security.
    "It was a matter of acting, and proving we were someone else.  If we could prove we weren't ourselves to people that knew us.. Then Imperial Security wouldn't figure it out either." Deadmeet said with a grin, catching the thermal detonator dud Troy'd been holding.
    "Exactly Deadmeet.." Troy said from the podium with a smile to Indy.  "Like I was saying.. We have our disguises with smuggler ID's, and most of my team has been put together.  As Indy's said, She will be leading a team into the Imperial City of Quis, there she will enter into the high sercurity library they have in the central building.  The central building has a high security system that was installed by some alien technology.. Which we don't know much on.  From what we do know, this library has information we need to continue in our raid on the Kartuiin Sector, and this mission can't be screwed up by stupid mistakes." Troy said.
    Looking to Indy for permission to keep going, she knew he was always good at speeches to get everyone in good spirits, and smiled in conformation.
    Affirming her smile with a nod, Troy continued, "The Aurora Force has been sent to the Kartuiin Sector to fight on the front lines of this war. And this is one of the steps we have to achieving victory for the New Republic and proving the Aurora Force as a capable and powerful group of those devoted to a cause. In the next 15 hours, a team of 'smugglers' will be taking a smuggling freighter to Xenen, after making a stop to an Imperial Supply station to make sure things work out. It'll be a lot easier to stop there and give them our show before taking it to the head security of the planet of Xenen.
    Me and my team will be taking our whole mess of explosives to the a city on the planet of Xenen.  Indy and her team will be posing as Imperial Academy Students on vacation or on a field trip to the city of Quis, where the Library of Serah is found.
    "What will you achieve in taking a team of commandos in as smugglers with lots of explosives?" a commando from the back said, rather not liking his mind being played with by Troy and DM's show.
    "Well.. My teams job will be to buy Indy's team time. The plan is for everyone to get to the planet of Xenen, her team in Quis, mine on a spaceport by the the Imperial Factories of Quis.  And there me, my team, and our explosives, plan on leveling some Imperial Weapons Factories, and destroy some Imperial buildings that might give Indy's team some trouble." Troy said in response to the question, loving the job of taking the terrorist activity to the Imperials for once.
    "Raising Hell for Imperial City Police is how I think it's put best." Mike said following Troy's response, "Didn't plan on leaving without me were you?"
    "Didn't dream on it Mike, no one knows how to raise hell better than you." Troy said with a smile, looking to Indy again, noticing that she wasn't the craziest about him keeping her podium longer than she'd expected.
    "Well Thank you Mr. Ivriss, now if you and your team will get your acts together.. I'll see you and the rest of my team in the hanger for departure
in 15 hours.  You are all dismissed.  Good luck and may the force be with us all." Indy said, taking back her podium and looking to Troy who just seemed to grin next to Dm in their disguises, hoping their 'distraction' plans weren't going to cause to much chaos.
    Watching as those filed out of the briefing room, while some stayed to converse about their jobs on this mission, she walked over to Troy who'd found Alexandra and showed her what the Lab Techs had done to him.
    "It's amazing.. I'm not crazy about it.. But if it's for the mission, and it's not permanent, then I'll bear with it. But the smile gave you away though." Alexandra said with a smile to Troy, who'd embraced her in a hug.
    "Hope you aren't gonna worry with me running around with the guys blowing up buildings.." Troy said with her in his arms.
    "Who says I'm not going to watch out for you?" Lexie said, smiling in return with a joking look on her face.
    "Aw... I thought you were going to stay and watch Bray?"
    "Cec has him taken care of.. It took some time to trust the guy...I mean...He enjoys riding anything on that repulsor board of his.. Just hope Brayden doesn't grow up like him."
    "Cec? You sure?" Troy said, ready to argue the youth watching his son on his own so soon, but Indy tapped him on the shoulder, causing him to turn around, Alexandra still in his arms.
    "You all ready?  Or must I drag you two off another." Indy said with a smile, looking at the two lovers, brought back together after Troy's rescue mission.
    "Seems Lexie's goin with me.. But DM looks to be a little sidetracked." Troy said, looking to DM who'd found Nil before she left and she was examining the scar across his right cheek that seemed real.
    "Just be sure you're all ready to go in 15 hours ok?" Indy said, going to check on some final things in my office on the mission, and send out some messages before we head out.  15 Hours.. Comes sooner than you think." Indy said, leaning back on a chair, remembering what it'd been like to be reunited with Mike after everyone thought he'd died in Lyccos II.
    "See you in 15 then Indy, we'll have our goodbyes ready for then." Troy said, looking for those in his team, and any new additions that were compelled to join.

 

Briefings were written by Aurora Force CO LCM Indiana Bridger and former Aurora Force XO LCM Troy Nexus.

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