Krest | A Star Wars Story

Chapter 13: General Yao'l

0900 hours, 21 BBY

Republic Navy Low Altitude Assault Transport Gunship

Republic Military Base Sylas, Corrin Sector, Planet Heldia

It had been almost four hours since the 76th had landed at Sylas Base, an old manufactorum turned republic military base. In those four hours the 76th had unloaded all their ground forces, shored up defensive formations with Krest's help, and began intermingling with the battered garrison at Sylas. Now both Krest and Skitarr stood around a holotable in the middle of the command center, patiently awaiting the arrival of General Yao'l.

"What's taking him so long?" cursed Skitarr as she looked for an officer to question. Before long she managed to catch an unlucky comms officer walking by and immediately began inquiring about the General's location.

"Madam I assure you we don't know, last we heard he was called back to the cruiser." The officer explained raising his hands up as if he was surrendering.

"And when was this?!" Skitarr asked, making no effort to hide her irritation."

"About two days ago?" Said the officer looking off in the distance, pondering the question. "It's hard to tell, the General is a big fan of leaving with only the team assigned to him and his padawan without telling anyone where he went."

Skitarr huffed and shook her head. "How that man became a Jedi knight, I'll never know."

While Skitarr grumbled to herself the comms officer slipped away leaving Krest and Skitarr alone with the holotable.

"General, if Yao'l won't be back soon I'd like to go check up on the-"

Suddenly across the room a door wooshed open and a pale looking Duros stumbled in, holding its arm. The alien winced in pain with every step as he made his way towards them. From the alien's robes and the copper and silver lightsaber clipped to its belt, krest deduced that this had to be General Yao'l. The Duros leaned against the holotable and gave an apologetic smile.

"By the Force! What happened to you?!" Skitarr asked, furrowing her brow.

"What....this?" Yao'l said weakly, removing his hand to reveal a scorched hole in his sleeve. Krest glanced over to the Yao'l's gloved palm and saw it covered in blood and what he could only guess was charred robe and flesh. "Commando droids...clipped me on the ride back."

"From the cruiser?" Skitarr asked skeptically.

Yao'l smirked and shook his head. "That was a lie I told them to tell you."

Skitarr's eyes filled with disbelief as she glared at the comms officer, who tried his best not to make eye contact. "So, what were you doing instead of your job?"

While the two discussed General Yao'l's whereabouts, Krest put out a silent page for Shaman to bring a medkit for Yao'l's arm. Within the second an alert popped up on Krest's hud which contained an "affirmative" from Shaman. With that out of the way Krest returned to the holotable where Yao'l and Skitarr were still discussing Yao'l's little adventure.

"Well...besides that, I've been searching for an underground militia that wants to help us fight General Rakarth's forces." Yao'l explained.

"Militia? Reports said that all planetary defense forces were pretty much wiped out during the initial invasion." Skitarr said thoughtfully.

"That's what the reports say, but, while I was out I found this," Yao'l inserted a data chip into the control panel and the holotable lit up, playing a warbled voice recording.