Retrieval Mission: The Ghosts of the Iron Citadel

[The Black Man]

"Good," Liew's praise was not unnoticed by Estelle. He did seem like the kind of boss who hardly every praised people, except for when they deserved it. In the darkness of the stairwell, she allowed herself a smile.

The Rebel spy poked her head out of the doorway and scanned her surroundings. The hallway was a lot like the one down two floors, with more windows and less artwork. There was something about the windows which didn't make sense, they seemed to distort the view of Cinnegar a bit. It clicked in her mind...these windows were at least two inches. They'd stop almost any blaster bolt from outside or inside.

A *whirring* noise caused her ears to pick up and she quickly turned towards the sound. A protocol droid wandered down the hall, its eyes staring forward.

"Oh my!" it raised its arms in surprise. "What are you doing here?? Who are you??"

[Estelle Russard]

Frell

That was her first thought. The second was to wrastle the droid back into the stairwell with her and deactivate it. Which was what she did, but she knew the effort to be more than futile. The droid - if it was worth an ounce of the oil spent on it to keep its joints greased - would have sent off an alarm via its internal circuitry. Estelle was technically shutting the barn door after the bantha had bolted.

Double frell

"Problem, big Brother" she said leaving the bodycount behind in the stairwell and jogging briskly down the corridor. "Timetable is shot to heck. We've likely got Noxious (the rebel codename for Imperial security) eyes opening as we speak. I need the most direct route asap"

She stepped into the turbo-lift and as the doors closed behind her and the lift shot upward, the words Liew was saying broke down into garbled static noise. Arriving on level four, the doors opened and Estelle tapped her ear, "Say again, Brother John....?"

[The Black Man]

"Get to the next level OPHELIA." The Black Man's bass voice rumbled in her earpiece. Go down the hall and turn left. There's another service staircase."

"Sir!" Sarna hollered from her station, "I've got a full squad of stormtroopers approaching her position."

"Understood. Russard! Fifth Freedom's been relinquished. Do what you have to do to get to the next level. If it means shooting your way out. Do it."

Liew's demeanor was relatively calm through all this. As usual, he had a backup plan.

"Tell Killbrew's team to start their run. I'll meet them halfway."

[Estelle Russard]

Relinquished? Damnit. Estelle did not want to accept that order.

"Confirm last, Brother John? There's still time to complete task in hand" she said, her course unchanged. "Am continuing on to primary target"

Estelle got to the data room before the approaching troops had rounded into the south corridor. She drove her vibroblade into the lock crevice and snapped the latch open. The room was devoid of personell, which was unusual, but Estelle did not waste time or thought on it.

Sweat was beading on her face and her fingers shook with the pumping adrenalin that was making every move and thought a clarity of methodology. It was just like training. Sorta.

She approached the computer consol and took a datacard from the lining in her pants pocket and a jack-jump device that was rebel-designed to parasite onto an Imperial data-port. She could hear the footfalls outside the door and could picture the security troops positioning themselves to burst through.

--Click-click--

Russard snapped on the jj-device and then lifted her blaster ready to shoot the first body into the breach.

Liew was shouting something into her earpeice.

..Looks like she didn't have time after all.

[The Black Man]

"Russard! Be ready to duck! Repeat! Be ready to duck!"

Multiple stormtrooper squadrons were racing into the room now, their blasters ready to fire. A rat-faced Imperial Officer strode in, his face twisted into a smirk that made Kazaar's smirks look like smiles.

"Well...well...well," the Officer's smarmy face didn't change its look, "What do we have here. Our 'ghost' appears to be nothing more than a moppet.

"So Young Moppet. What are you doing here?"

Before Estelle could either open her mouth, or shoot the smirk from the Imperial's face, the entire room exploded in bursts of blaster fire as a team of masked and heavily armored men broke through the tempered glass on the outside.

Their blasters fired with precision and one of them grasped the young Rebel's arm. She started to fight off, but the man's voice stopped her cold.

"Calm yourself, OPHELIA."

It was 'The Black Man'.

[Estelle Russard]

Liew? What the--

A blaster bolt whizzed by her head and the timely yank of The Black Man spared her a big molten tunnel through her brain.

"Who?" she couldn't grasp what..or rather how the tide had turned so much in the rebel favour. Bodies dropped, or were flung back more accurately, as Liew's team sprayed the Imperials without bias, the smarmy officer being among the first to go.

Liew grabbed the jack-jump device and the data card from the consol and pocketed it and then ushered his charge out, giving no room for argument.

"There's no data on that card!" Estelle cried out.

"We got what we need" was Liew's unconcerned reply.

"We got nothin!" Russard was emphatic. "I had no time to search"

Liew smiled cryptically, "I know"

Estelle did not like that smile. Her mind raced over events, but her thoughts were pulled quite emphatically to the present dilema as a second squad of Imps came running to them from the end of the corridor.

[The Black Man]

'The Black Man' wasted no time tossing a thermal detonator towards the squad, causing them to scatter as quickly as they could. The explosion killed most of the Imperials, but both Rebels were forced to use their blasters to dispatch several others as they tried to fight back against the invaders.

Estelle was still angered by the intrusion to her mission, her apparently failure, and 'Liew's' silence on their goals.

"We go down two levels and escape through the garage," 'The Black Man' spoke quickly, as he hustled Estelle towards the ventilation shaft. "There's an unmarked speeder which will take you to your ship. You'll immediately leave.

"No one saw your face, yes?"

[Estelle Russard]

"The droid, the woman." she said, cringing on the inside. "Any others are dead on the dataroom floor"

The Black Man's face was impassive, all except for the faintest tick of his cheek.

"Sorry" she added lamely.

[The Black Man]

Wekom raised his comlink to his face. "Niskanen. There should be a woman trussed up...where..." he settled a gaze on Estelle, who quickly gave him the location.

"Third floor. Outside a window. Also look for a disabled protocol droid on the fourth floor. We're taking them."

"Aye sir."

"Next time, " The Director of Special Ops glowered at Estelle, "Wear a mask and change your face. Do it anyway. When we get back, I want to see you with short hair. That's an order."

The two were now at the entrance to the ventilation shaft. They crawled through it silently, then emerged in the garage where a speeder, driven by an unnamed Rebel, waited.

'Othniel' motioned for Estelle to get in and she complied.

They rode in silence, before the Rebel spy opened her mouth.

"Why didn't we get the data card?"

"Because," The Black Man answered, not looking at her, "There was no data on it. The list was fake."

[Estelle Russard]

"Fake..? Then why the heck..?" the question trailed off, Estelle answering it for herself within her own mind.

Her demeanor soured even further. She was still smarting inside for her task failure; the carelessness of being seen and the correllating rebuke. And the fact Liew wanted her hair cut. It wasn't so much the cutting as the way he'd commanded it of her. She knew how to take orders, but somehow this one grated on her.

"It was a setup" she stated flatly and Liew slid her a glance as if to prompt her to continue, knowing she'd get there eventually.

"And I was what? Bait?"

The Black Man smiled. "Dont be offended, you play 'cheese' very well"

Estelle bit back a retort, leaving just an unspoken bitterness to line her mouth. She decided there and then that she didn't like Liew all that much.

"Why did I have to be kept in the dark? Seems like it wouldn't have made any difference"

[The Black Man]

For a moment, her companion hesitated.

"You can stop here Darwyn. I'll drive the rest of the way."

The driver nodded, then pulled the speeder over to the side of the road. He exited, nodded to his boss, then seemed to disappear right before Estelle's eyes.

Liew got in the front seat and pulled away from the shoulder. More silence followed, both Rebels staring up at the rearview mirror to see if they'd been followed.

Nothing.

"Because," The Black Man stated simply, "Only a select few know there's a traitor within the Alliance. I needed to see if it were anyone in my organization. Since it's not...I can proceed in seeing who does know."

Estelle was flabbergasted, "How do you--?"

"Because two are dead and one is currently recovering from wounds sustained on a mission. A mission they were with me on," his black eyes flashed, "I was with them from the time I informed them of the traitor to the time of their deaths or injury."

"But what about when--"

"I know what you're thinking and the answer is, 'No'. The Inquisitors have their agents within the Rebellion and I have mine." Othniel let it linger whether he meant within the Empire or within the Rebellion. Estelle had a feeling it was both.

"My organization was not involved," he continued, "Valten has made some very subtle moves. Even I am having trouble detecting them. But I had to see which department might have leaked the info to him. I can eliminate mine, now I have to see who else is involved."

He pulled the speeder to the side of the road again.

"Do you understand?"

[Estelle Russard]

She understood well enough to be afraid of her own short-vision. She should know, know, that the picture is always much bigger than the sphere of her own rotation of experience and knowledge.

She was just one cog in an enormous and intricate wheel. The world of Intelligence was an ever changing face of shadows and half-seen, half-understood truths. Estelle turned a candid appraisal on Liew. The man exuded quiet confidence and capability. She had so much to learn. What a child she was compared to the agent seated beside her. Somehow, with her runnings with Kazaar - the successes they'd had and the rush of completing missions with such an older operative - had fooled her into thinking she was much farther along the road than she was. Just by being who he was, not even saying a thing, The Black Man glaringly spotlighted just what a self-delusion that actually was. Estelle tried not to feel overwhelmed.

"I have a long way to go, dont I?" she asked with complete transparency.

[The Black Man]

For the first time in a while, 'The Black Man' smiled. A true smile, not one placed on to placate someone. This was genuine.

"You've learned a lot and continue to do so," he stated as the speeder pulled into traffic again, "But you must apply what you're learned. Changing your face or your voice, even slightly means much in your occupation.

"Perhaps it's unwise to partner you with Kazaar..."

[Estelle Russard]

"I request that you dont change that"

She didn't want another partner. There was a bond shared between her and Aurelias that her gut-instinct told her did not come around very often. He had come back for her on Mastala. She knew she could trust him with her life.

Her tone was more telling to Liew than her actual words, honest as they were, "I trust him. And you know what that means in this business"

[The Black Man]

"It means everything," The Black Man answered without hesitation. At the same time, he angled the speeder down a side road.

"Your cover is excellent, but you aren't using it to your advantage. You father's business dealings make it an excellent opening."

He pulled to the side of the road and Estelle spied two people waiting for them. One was a female, Sarna, her right ear covered by a headset. The other a male, younger than her, who looked like he could go 20 shockboxing rounds with almost any day.

Sarna came up to her boss and whispered in his ear. 'Liew' cursed silently, then turned to OPHELIA.

"Your ship is a mile that way. Take a circuitous route back to your partner, but do not go by Coruscant without him. Appearances...must be kept.

"Get a hair cut along the way as well. Understood?"

[Estelle Russard]

Estelle was relieved that there was to be no partner change more than Liew could know. Or maybe he did know..Estelle acknowledged his admonishions with a soft smile, "Yes sir" and exited the speeder.

She would make her way carefully back to the "Apparition" and set a course for home.

She had always thought her father's business association with the Empire would afford her some advantage for the Alliance through social gatherings and suares and the like. But perhaps, as Brother John hinted, there could be other avenues. She mulled these things over, together with the news of a mole within the network and all that that meant, as she moved through the streets.

But, as was typical to alot of females, the most pressing thoughts kept returning -- into just what style she should cut her hair.