THE RECRUIT

QEK: Discovery

Classified Imperial Base
100 KM, NORTH
Daro
LST: 18:30:58 // DAY: 16
RC-5570

"Hold up. What?" Captain Mech says pulling Taipan out of the rain into the shelter of the cave. "The Jango Fett? The base DNA genome we're all grown from?" He says wiping water from his face to see Taipan better.

She continues smiling. "He's the one who gave me these blades," she says unsheathing both of her knives at the same time. The yellow of the vibroblades reflects off her wet armor. A smaller blade from her forearm and a larger blade from her calf are in opposite hands of their respective sheaths.

"Wait, how? What now?" Mech says still confused. She knew Jango? That means she had to have been ten or eleven when we were still in tubes. "Okay, how bout you tell me all about it after we clear the cave?" Mech rubs his palm over his head flicking off the access water.

"Okay," she says adjusting the grip on her blades, "You're the one with the fancy gadgets in his helmet."

"Right," he says pulling on his bucket thankful for the security of it. She sure is a curious creature. Her HUD display comes online at the bottom corner of his view screen. She is looking at the front of the gunship.

Mech cycles through thermal and night vision filters. The distress signal recalibrating with the helmet focus reticle. He points to the front of the crushed larty. "Signal's coming from the cockpit."

Mech approaches the twisted metal with his deece leveled. He blinks through thermal, NV, and specialized filters looking for detections of IEDs or boobytraps in the fallen rocks. The ground and ceilings come back blank.

He blinks back to NV and the bright green filter picks up a couple of body-shaped figures strewn out in the larty bay. One of them is sitting against the opposite door, the chin of his helmet touching his chest as if he were taking a breather before getting back in the fight. His blue striped infantry trooper armor is loose and unfilled around his limbs.

Mech frowns spotting another soldier laying on his stomach. His leg twisted at an impossible angle as his arm reaches over the side of the gunship. His helmet was tossed a few feet away revealing a mummified skull with sunken eye sockets and patchy black hair. Mech goes to pry off their armor tallies but they are missing.

A faint beeping echoes into the cave as Mech climbs up closer to the flight control panel. His heartbeat pulsing in his ears. HUD still reads no explosive devices. The remnants of the pilot are still strapped in his seat with a charred blaster hole in his chest plate. Armor tally is gone too. The second pilot is missing. Most likely thrown from his seat during the crash. A red blinking light pulses to the rhythm of the beeps on the control panel.

Mech lets out a breath of air recognizing the little warning light. He scoffs and says, "It's not a distress signal."

"What do you mean?" Taipan says leaning over the gunship.

He ejects the hidden vibroblade under his knuckle plate with a clinch of his fist and reaches into the cockpit.

"Sorry, ner vod," Mech says under his breath pushing the pilot over so he can pry open a panel under the controls. He tugs out a handful of wires. "It's a sensor," he says to Taipan his voice straining. He cuts the wires and the beeping stops. The blinking on the dash dimming out.

Mech makes one more sweep with his HUD deciding the cave is clear and switches helmet comms hoping the signal will cut through the storm. Static reaches his ears. He sighs and presses a couple of buttons on his forearm comlink to try and boost the signal and walks over to the cave opening.