Gray

Chapter 1

"This shouldn't be this easy."

"Hurry up, Vixen Two, we don't have time for your bragging. If they catch you-" Commander Verlaine started.

"Oh relax, I've got Fahili watching my back. Besides I'm not bragging." The young Mirialan said as her fingers tapped madly on the screen of her datapad like the legs a probe killer spider droid. Given the gravity of the mission, Adara was hardly portraying the level of tension that gripped her fellow teammates. She liked to believe that was more confidence than conceit.

"Codenames on the comms..." Fahili's voice came through the encrypted channel. She maintained her usual cool, but Adara could sense the hint of annoyance in the way she dragged the last word out.

Adara grinned to herself. She couldn't help prodding at Fahili's nerves more, just for the fun of it. "Oh please," she said as she finished inputting the data at the panel, and sealing it up as she found it. "You act as if anyone would know the difference between Adara and Vixen. Nobody here knows who we are." She turned to face two men in all white imperial armor. Bucket-like helmets that seemed to draw a suppressed frown at the ventilation openings for their mouths, sat on their heads. They each held the standard issue E-11 automatic blaster rifles.

"Who are you?" the first Stormtrooper asked, his voice altered by the masks filter.

"Yeah, what's your business over here?" said the other.

Adara was stunned for a moment. Based on their prior recon there shouldn't have been another guard patrol in this sector for another 3 minutes at the least. She put on her most stunning smile. "Manifest maintenance," she said cheerfully. That... may not have been the best approach. Regardless of being dressed the part, no non-imperial contract hires were ever happy to work at Kuat Drive Yards. Most of them either had no choice or were forced to work here to fulfill Imperial legislated indentured obligations. And though Mirialan's looked mostly human, her green skin and the tattoo markings on her face were enough to stir the Empire's prejudices.

One of the white armored soldiers angled his head at the other. "I don't think contract hires are authorized shipping and receiving positions." He turned back to her. "Let me see your identification."

"Oh, yes I've got it just right..." she patted down her engineering suit as if looking for it as she mumbled, "any second now, Fahili..."

The sound of two blaster bolts filled the air, and the two Stormtroopers clattered in heap piles, a singed black hole smoking from each of their backs. Adara sighed "Oh thank the f-"

"Go." Fahili interrupted over her communicator, even as she shouldered her sniper blaster. From her perch up high, she watched Adara run. The mission was supposed to be relatively easy. With a mining freighter and authorization codes provided by friendly contacts within the Imperial Senate, Vixen Squadron was tasked to gain clearance to the Kuat Drive Yards where Adara, the team's best slicer, could slice in and steal information containing the locations of various Imperial manufacturing operations, all which fall under Kuat's engineering business. Given their disguises as contract engineers, all would have gone well... if the troopers hadn't caught Adara at a panel that no worker had any businesses being near. The fact that Fahili had to shoot them further complicated things.

"Vixen Two, Vixen Three, what is going on in there?" Commander Verlaine spoke over the comm. Her voice was calm, but they could still sense the tension beneath her thick Alderaanian accent.

Fahili climbed down from the perch that she'd been watching over Adara from as she accessed her comm. "Vixen Leader, Vixen Two ran into some troopers. I took them. I recommend you take off. We'll find our own way off this station."