The Defenders: Home System

[coronhorn]

The Outter Rim Territories
Praxeum System
Praxeum Moon, Watchtower
18 ABY___________________________________________________________________________


Admiral Alexandra Tre'cov walked quietly through the massive command and control center that was the operational heart of not just the system that the Watchtower occupied but of the entire Defenders organisation. It was here that all of the information from the organisation's operatives came, it was from here that all of thier field units reported and received orders, and it was here that new requests for engagement of the Defender's rather unique services came. While the Lord Defender Devon Vos was the spiritual and visible head of the organisation she was she considered with a smile the one who made it get up and walk. He was the soul and she was the mind and the men and women they commanded were the body. She quietly moved through the mostly darkened areas unobtrusively taking in the various beings working at their consoles. Some were handling mundane things like directing local space traffic within the system, others were analyzing data sent back from the field and still others were over-seeing it all. As she approached one of the crew pits near the center of the room that was dominated by a massive holographic projector the first of a pair of security personnel moved to stop her,

"I'm sorry mame but this is..."

"It's OK Corporal," she flashed him her ID badged wrist and then stepped more fully into the soft blue glow of the holo-projection, enough that he immediately recognized her, though much to her own delight he scanned the badge anyway and confirmed her ident against records, she saw his own shoulders visibly relax at her own visible signs of pleasure, "Keep up the good work."

The young man she assumed from his build and size, nodded back moved back to his post waiting to challenge any others that wondered too near the restricted command center,

"Admiral!" The night watch commander started as she decended the steps that lead down into the pit surrounding the projector, "I was unaware you would be visiting us tonight."

Tre'cov gave the nervous Twi'lek a bit of a grin, "That's why it's called a surprise inspection Commander Gent."

It wasn't of course even that but Alexis loved to keep her subordinates on their toes, "How are things going this evening?"

"As quickly and eventful as a cargo run from Corellia to Coursant Admiral." he seemed to watch for any sign of her not understanding the reference to what was one of the safest and most predictable cargo runs in the known galaxy, she nodded and he continued, "We've had several reports from field units in the mid-rim , but most of the chatter is concerning events on the Mon Calamari homeworld. Seems that mangy mutt Sivter has finally made a move directly against the Republic and they're drawing quite a bit of support though only the Force knows why since no one has been able to find a way to even slow down those Force forsaken Charon yet."

"And how goes Onderon?"

"Inital reports were much worse than the actual conditions on the ground, the Lord Defender's compliment seems to be the largest on the ground currently though there does seem to be chatter that the Med-Star folks are inbound."

"That will be good, though I suspect they'll be needed in rather short order over on Dac."

The Twi'lek nodded, "Reports indicate that the Lord Defender and his party should be back home within a week, two at the most."

Alexis nodded and a comfortable silence settled once again over the pit as the two of them watched the representation of the galaxy slowly rotate above them, this was the real reason for her visit to the command deck, she always found a calm reassurance in watching the massive holo and tonight she'd been plagued by dreams of the sort that hadn't bothered her in decades. Dreams of the night the Imperial officer had shown up at her family's home to inform them of her father's death and alleged treason to the Empire. She closed her eyes pushed those memories away by force of will,

"Is everything alright Admiral?"

"Perfectly so Commander."

As if on que or by the will of the Force she would never know but one of the watch standers chose that moment to called for the watch commander's attention, the two of them moved to his side, Alexis noted that he was the section head for local space command,

"Sars, we have a report from the perimeter patrols, a small light freighter of what appears to be corellian make has dropped out at the jump-point, they're transmitting that they have information that Alexandra Tre'cov might wish to bargain for." The young human looked back over his shoulder to the two of them, "Is that you Admiral?"

Alexandra, the name hit her like a ton of duracreet bricks, since her and her mother had disappeared from Imperial space that night she'd gone by Alexis, no one here even knew that name,

"Have them brought in, standard precautions, let intelligence have first go at them to verify their story." she responded without even thinking.

"Yes Admiral." Commander Alister Ghent replied, interjecting himself into the conversation, Alexandra chided herself for breaking the proper chain of command, she straightened her tunic and nodded to the commander in appology,

"I'll be in my ready room commander, if this information passes mustard let me know there."

"Aye, Admiral."

With that she turned and disappeared quietly back into the comfortable darkness of the command floor, within a few minutes she'd reached her ready room and the caf dispenser was burbling as it brewed her up a tall cup of caf, as she waited her own mind raced at the possibilites and it took every spec of her self-control not to charge down to the flight-deck and meet the un-authorised ship on the flight deck, her past was one area that she had little control over and so she had little pracitce in maintaing her composure. She'd barely been six when her mother had gathered up thier things in teh middle of the night after the officer's visit and lead her out into the cool night air, she wasn't even sure of what planet they'd been on then, just that she'd been looking forward to her father's pending return from space. Eventually she and her mother had made thier way to the outer rim and then gotten hooked up with a fledgling group known to the galaxy as the Red Star Alliance, her mother had always told her that the Alliance had welcomed them with open arms. They ended up on the Alliance's capital world of Chren and that was where, amongst a menagerie of Alien species she'd grown up. Her past before that was always something that she'd wondered about but her mother had always discouraged her looking into, and now tonght she'd been awoken by nightmare's she'd long since gotten past only to be confronted by this... some one showing up on her none too easy to locate door-step with information, it was almost enough to make one buy into some of the more spiritual aspects of the Force followers, ones she'd always been rather questionable on... sure she understood the raw utility of it as a tool and weapon, but the stuff about seeing the future and it having a will... those she'd always been cautious of... now it seemed the Force was planing to educate her on... taking the full cup she took a long calming sip... we shall see she smiled to herself...

OOC: This is going to be a hub posting for the Defenders from now on, anyone who wishes to write a defender can feel free to post here communicating with the command structure and I will write them a reply. Likewise if you have a job for the Defenders you can contact them here and I'll have a representative dispatched to contact you in your thread.

[DarthYnoj]

============================================Incoming Transmission============================================
From:Rune Kaatranay,Gen.Secretary of the Neimoidia Rulling Comittee

To:Defender Group Leadership

Secracy Level:Top Secret

Subject:Sith matter

Greetings,

i took the courage to messege you about a very gentle matter concerning the NRC and a Sith.I cant say more about this from this messege but if you want and you are interested please sent an envoy of your on Cato Neimoidia as soon as possible.

The subject is very gentle i repeat and dangerous.It must be handled with TOP SECRACY!

Regards Rune Kaatranay
=============================================================End of Transmission=======================================

[coronhorn]

As Alexandra sat sipping her caf and studying some of the initial data coming from the intelligence section on the being who'd found their way into the Praxeum system, her comm chirped. She keyed the system to the new message, it was from Watch Commander Ghent, communications had just received an interesting message from the Nemodian system. Attached to it was another datafile with information from both Nemodia and Onderon. Activating her desk's holographic interface she spread the various data files about her in the air above her desk, there were several vid files along with audio and several reports from one of the members of the Omegas. There were also vids and images from Nemodia that seemed to match the man from Onderon,

"Very interesting." she purred to herself, "So the Nemodian ruling Council has gotten back into bed with the Sith but at least this one is having second thoughts about the arrangement."

Her fingers drummed the solid onyx table top of her desk and then she smirked to herself and then began sifting through the jackets on operational units still in-system,

"There you are." she smiled to herself and then moved the Knight Defender's holographic jacket onto the top of the virtual pile, the system automatically recognizing the assignment and generating the electronic orders. The Defender she'd selected would find them waiting for him when he awoke from his sleep cycle and it would be up to him to assemble a standard team to accompany him. This would be an interesting and challenging mission, she had no doubts and it would be one that the Lord Defender himself would likely keep an eye on, keying open her own comm unit she prepared a response to Rune Kaatranay, she hoped it wouldn't find him dead before the arrival of her envoy...

[coronhorn]

Knight Defender Barracks D2
05:36 Standard Galactic____________________________________________________________________

Martian Treen streched his arms and his legs as his personal data assistant chirped it's annoyance his ignoring it at him, it had been a long night and he'd not gotten to bed till far to late and so he was prone to simply waving off the device and putting it back sleep when he noticed the message waiting icon slowly spining at the top of the devices small holo-projection field flashing red every few tics, cursing silently to himself he sat up and swung his feet over the side of the generously sized bunk, cautiously testing the warmth of the stone flooring, much to his satisfaction it was warm to the touch,

"These new quarters are so much nicer than the ones at the Forge were." he commented mostly to himself, across the room a small spherical object flared to life with pale blue light and then rose into the air, it's tiny micro-repulsors filling the air with a low-pitched hum,

"They do seem to be much more to your liking Master Treen, no doubt in large part to the adjust-ability of the in room environmental controls. I've always found your tastes to be a bit... different than most organics. Personally I concur, the power feeds and network access speeds are much improved to my previous accommodations."

"That, EV, is because your previous accommodations were a storage locker in the main holding facility... in orbit." Martian smirked as he reached over and poked at the message waiting icon, the display stopped and then shifted revealing the visage of Admiral Tre'cov, he almost saluted out of she force of habit but caught himself, as it was just a recording,

"Lt. Commander Treen, we've recently received a request for assistance with a Sith problem from the Nemodian Ruling Council, I'm assigning you. Select your team and report to the Light of Justice by 09:00. Admiral out."

"Well that didn't take long did it sir?" the small airborne droid spoke with a bit of a sigh to it's otherwise inflectionless voice, Treen smiled to himself both at the idea of his first assignment and of the sucess of the modifications he'd made to EeVee's localisation sub-routines.

"No it didn't." he responded standing to his feet and crossing to the closet full of uniforms plucking the tan base uniform pieces and tossing them back onto the bed, "Have you assimilated the new modules and sub-routines I added to your que the other night?"

"Yes sir," the droid bobbed in the air imitating the bob of a human's head as it's previously blue lighting shifted to a deep almost violet and then vanished all together leaving just the small floating grey sphere which then itself appeared to vanish but for a slight visual distortion as Treen crossed the small room to it's private refresher, he glanced back and flashed the droid a smile, "Perfect, I'm going to grab a quick sanistream, could you bring up the jackets on the remaining action teams still in-system and sort them by effectiveness ratings and training for sensitive diplomatic missions."

The small droid shifted back to it's previous blue hue and then returned to it's dock on the small desk across from the bed next to the closet, a few minutes later when Martian slipped out of the 'fresher he was greeted by three holo-graphic personnel jackets, EV rose back into the air and began his presentation as Treen began pulling on the dis-separate pieces of his uniform,

"The Gundarks would be my top choice sir, they're command Sargent one Nuran Gib is a Twi'lek who is a former member of the New Republic special forces and senate guard, he's well versed in small group tactics and surveillance and is familiar with the ins and outs of the political class."

"Why did he leave the republic? Seems like a real patriot."

"Offical records appear to be unclear on that point sir, but unofficially it seems he had a disagreement on the status of slavery in the New Republic with a rather influential senator. The whole thing was kept rather hush-hush and he was discharged after he publicly assaulted the senator in question at one of the local low-level establishments when the republic was back on triple zero. After that he worked with a number of private security firms till he was apparently black-listed a year ago, he was one of the Defender's earliest non-alliance recruits and his squad has several sucessful missions to it's credit."

"Oh?"

"Yes sir, thier most recent action was the boarding of an unwelcome visitor early this morning."

"What about the rest of his squad?"

"All highly ranked in small arms and CQC; one male bothan, one human female, and one human male. The bothan is noted as having the highest scores so far seen on the counter-intel tests. The humans are a brother and sister pairing, orignally from Chren."

"So they're near-humans?"

"No sir, records indicate their parents were late-comers, they're both fully human."

"No superiority complexes in the lot?"

"No sir, they're all four star rated sir, top tier operators according to their psych and performance evals."

Martian Treen nodded as he tucked his cover under the right shoulder epulate and shouldered the field bag he'd been packing, "Well they sound perfect, book 'em E."

"As you wish sir, will I be accompanying you sir or shall I stay here?"

Treen considered it for a long tic, EV wasn't standard issue but the regs he was familiar with didn't prohibit him from bringing a personal droid, "Bunk in E," he said raising the flap on his bag, he could swear the small droid almost sounded like it giggled as it dropped into the top of the bag and flopped the flap back down, "But stay quiet for now."

"As you wish master." the muffled voice of the droid replied with just a hint of disappointment in it. Martian snatched up his PDA and slipped it into his pocket and clipped his lightsaber into place on his belt and then sealed the door behind, it was a nice room, he thought with a smile as he headed for the common mess, he was really going to miss those heated floors...

[coronhorn]

Praxeum Moon, The Forge
Main Hanger Deck___________________________________________________________

Martian Treen eyed the shuttle as he crossed the only lightly busy expanse of hanger that stood between him and it, it looked to a be ratehr standard Sentinal class combat landing shuttle of the sort used throughout the galaxy except for it's dark black and grey paintjob and blood red defenders insigna on the vertically stored wings, he was sure it also likely had several other modifications of the sort one wouldn't see until they were needed. Assembled near the bottom of the lowered boarding ramp were the four members of his commando unit, they were each dressed in tan and grey standard issue light combat suits with the blood red defenders patching on one shoulder and thier unit patch on the other. As he approached the rather grizzled looking Twi'lek called attention on deck and the four of them all snapped to attention rather smartly,

"Thank you Sargent Gib, at ease. I don't know how much you've been told but I'll give you a full briefing once we're on ship and settled into our quarters there. I understand you ran a very sucessful op earlier this morning and I applogise for not giving you more rest time but you'll get plenty of that on-ship. Now lets load up and get this bird vertical."

"You heard the man Gundarks, load up!" the Sargent added with a bit of smirk sending the other three scurrying for thier gear bags and then up the ramp.

The twi'lek shouldered his own bag and then reached over and bent first his left ear and then his right ear forward,

"Good, you're not too wet back there."

Treen smirked, "Three years with the Cor-Sec tactical unit and four years as a Jedi initiate."

"Ah," the older being grinned, "You must be one of the Lord Defenders from his Jedi days."

"Something like that." Treen laughed and then levitated the Sargent's other gear back from the deck and had it bob along in front of them like it was on a repulsor cart, the Sargent chuckled and stacked the one on his shoulder on top of it and snapped teh two together with a number of buckles. When they reached the top of the ramp the fairly large troop bay which had only momments before been rather bousterous fell silent for a few ticks and then erupted with the other three beings laughter,

"Told the sarge was geting old!" the younger human blurted out.

"You got it all wrong Crill, he's so badass that he's got the Jedi carryign his bags!" the bothan retorted. Gib gave Treen a quick hand signal and Treen let the heavily laden bags drop to the durasteel decking with a resounding thud that brought the silence back,

"Lets get this straight," Gib barked, his leeku twitching animatedly behind his left shoulder, "LIEUTENANT COMMANDER Treen has more field experince in his left pinky than all three of you combined. He's seen things that would give the lot of you nightmares and make no mistake the SITH are what nightmares are made of!"

Nuran Gib let that statement settle on his small squad, "That's right, I said SITH!"

The extra emphasis he put on the word caused the young human Crill to flinch and the bothan to bare his teeth, this won't be some panzy info peddler in over his head. We're walking into the lion's den according to intel, to a world with long and deep ties to the Sith so it's time to your game faces on and pull on your big boy pants."

"Sir, yes sir!" the three of them responded in unison and Martian Treen had to admit he was impressed, he'd have been pissin his trousers to have the Sargent baring down on him like that on his first real action,

"Now lets get our gear locked down and get this bird in the air!"

"Lt Commander." a voice came from just behind him and Treen turned to find a rather striking blond in full combat pilot regalla hanging out the cockpit access hatch.

"Yes?"

"Command's on the horn, says there's some new info you need to see, you can use our secure terminal."

Treen nodded and then started up the short ladder as she ducked back into the flight deck of teh shuttle, it was more cramped than he would have thought it should have been based on his expeirence with other ships of her type but the blond showed him to the communications station and settled into the cramped space and pulled a headset on and keyed up the transmission then entered his de-crypt code. The message from Rune Kaatranay played back through the earpiece and he grimaced, there was no way he could stealthly insert a ship the size of the Light of Justice into a heavily montiored quarntine system like Nemodia. Pulling the headset off he closed the transmission and shook his head,

"Sand-brained idiot that one." he growled. The blond gave him an amuzed smirk.

"Politicans," he provided, "Always wanting you to do the impossible without any notice."

She laughed, it was a pretty laugh he thought as he stood and brushed past her in the cramped compartment, "Hope you enjoy the ride." she spoke with a wink as he shuffled back down the ladder. Martian smiled to himself, I'm sure I would. Dropping to the deck he swaggered over to the row of crash seats where his unit was and dropped into the one they'd left open in front,

"anything I need to know?" Sargent Gib questioned.

"Nope, just unreasonable requests from paranoid employers."

"Ah."

The whole shuttle thrummed and then vibrated a low harmonic as the ships repulsor lifts kicked in and she rose from the deck, Treen glanced around the mostly empty bay and through to himself that this was an awful waste of space for just five men...



Praxeum Moon, High-orbit
Light of Justice______________________________________________________


The Shuttle flight up to orbit hadn't taken more than a few minutes and the thought once again occurred to him that this was an awful big shuttle for just his five men, as the lighting in the landing bay shifted from green to red, the commando's all popped their crash webbing and began de-harnessing their gear from the grid in the center of the bay, the bothan dropped his own two bags in front of him as he walked up with a grin. he pulled the field pack on and then shouldered the gear bag that held his field armor, in front of them the ramp hissed and began it's decent and the flight deck hatch popped open and the blond followed by two others piled out and then down the ramp,

"Are they stationed on the ship?" he asked the bothan, it looked up and then nodded.

"Probably sir, the Light of Justice is one of the Blade of Justice Light carriers that the Lord Defender had built for the fleet."

"Light carrier?" he asked, both surprised and confused.

"Yeah they're modeled on the old Venator-class republic ships from the Clone Wars but they're maybe half the size. It's why most of the ground pounders call them mini-vents. They carry two squadrons of Justice class space superiority fighters and a half-dozen or so support ships like this sentinel for troop operations."

Treen turned and strode down the ramp into the Light's cavernous hanger bay and glanced up just in time to see the massive hanger doors swing shut over head, they ran the length of the bay which was easily hundred meters or more in length and 30 meters across,

"She's a beaut isn't she?"

Martian turned and found one of the men from the shuttle following his gaze, "I tell you I ain't seen a thing like her since the Clone Wars. She's perfect for the sort of operations the Lord Defender wants her for."

Treen's eyes drifted back down to the flight deck itself and noticed there were at least two other Sentinels on the deck, "Why does she carry so many heavy landers?"

The older man chuckled, "Cause she carries a light battalion of marines son, gotta have the ability to deploy them if they're needed, each of these birds can drop fifty grunts armed to the teeth and ready to hold thier own for as long as they need to."

So much for it just being me and my squad he thoguht to himself, though it would be good to have backup close at hand if they needed it, "Are capable of atmosphic operations?"

The old man looked at him as if he were sun-fried in the head for a moment and then laughed, "You mean the Light don't ya? Yeah, she can even put down in a pinch but there ain't many places to land a five hundred meter ship most places."

"Aye, that there aren't."

"You done spinning yarn Darius?" the blond asked as she circled around the shuttle from the right hand side.

"Just bringing the officer up to speed, Alanna. Seems they didn't brief him properly on his ride."

The blonde laughed that beautiful laugh of hers and then rubbed her hands with a lubricant stained towel and extended a mostly clean hand to him and then caught herself and switched to a rather sloppy hand salute, "Sorry bout that commander, still getting used to all of this military stuff."

Martian flashed her his best roguish smile and extended his hand, "Fine by me, I'm not overly fond of rank myself, too much time in the Jedi commune I suppose."

Her smile broadened, "A jedi eh?"

"former." he added.

"Well see you around commander." she smiled and then wondered off with the older man Darius.

Martian turned to find Nuran Gib standing next to him with a smirk on his lips, "She's a fine one. Though it seems discipline on this ship may be a bit lax."

"Trust it won't be a problem for your people?"

The old Sargent's smirk turned to a full blown smile, "Not in the least sir."

"Good. Get your people settled in and we'll meet in our assigned briefing room at 10:00. I've got a captain to see."

"Aye, sir."

Treen straightened the bag on his shoulder and sauntered off in the same direction the flight crew for the shuttle had, "EV can you please download a schematic of this ship to my pad, wouldn't do to get lost."

his pad chirped as he pulled it out of his pocket and a schematic of the flight deck centered on his position was waiting for him, "Thank you E."

[coronhorn]

Treen found his way to the ship's bridge without too much difficulty but when he arrived he didn't see her captain, a tall alien with pink skin and nearly shimmering blue hair was dtanding near the command dias but he wore only the rank of a commander and no pip for command. He looked up at Treen's approach and smiled,

"Ah you must be Lieutenant Commander Treen, the captain said I should be expecting you, he had an unexpected call from the Admiral he had to attend to."

Martian nodded and took up a standard parade rest pose beside the dias, "Understood, she's a beautiful ship."

"We do take significant pride in her Commander, her and her sister are the pride of the Defender's Fleet. They're working on a third ship but the reports I saw say she won't be ready for another year."

"Do we really need such large ships? I thought the Defenders mostly operated at the small unit level."

"They do. Think of these ships more in terms of mobile forward operating bases. The Lord Defender has kept this system's location a very closely guarded secret for a long time and I don't think he plans on relinquishing that anytime soon so the Light and the Blade both operate mostly out in the galaxy and function as the field unit's home bases and if needed as their heavy support."

The comm unit he wore on his hip chirped at Treen and he quickly silenced it but the other man's expression seemed to lighten and he looked back over his shoulder in time to see an older man with a greying beard emerge from a very secure looking vault door back near where he'd enter the bridge, as the man approached Treen could easily make out the captain's rank along with a pair of golden command pips,

"Ah, you must be Commander Treen." the older man smiled and returned the salute Treen had snapped to and provided.

"That I am Captain." The older man gave him a rather cryptic smile before turning to his XO, "Have naivgation plot a course for Gamma Epsilon Commander."

"Aye Captain, Gamma Epslion."

As the captain turned back to him his cryptic smirk was more of a knowing smile, "No we're not going to Nemodians, your unit has been retasked for now. I imagine there are orders waiting on your link even now as we speak."

Treen glanced down at his personal link where the message waiting light was flashing paitently, "What is Gamma Epsilon?"

"One of our operational depots in the mid-rim. Seems we've been tasked with a supply run of some sort. I imagine the details of it will be in your new orders. I was told only what I needed to be. We'll be dropping you at Gamma Epslion."

"Dropping us sir?"

The older man nodded, "I suggest you go acquaint yourself with your quarters and their secure holo-terminal."

"Aye sir!" Treen nodded as he snapped to and saluted before departing.

"You have those directions EV?"

"Yes sir." the droids voice came through on his implanted sub-q transceiver.

"Then lay them on me."

One of the marines near the bridge entrance gave him a queer look as he passed and he realized he'd been vocalizing instead of sub-vocalizing,

"You will get a reputation if you keep that up master."

Treen chuckled and continued to the lift...