X-Wing: Knights of Plooma Chapter 2
CHAPTER 2
Colonel Tycho Celchu, Rogue Squadron's Executive Officer, looked over the collection of Rogues before him. Some were dutifully prepared to take notes on flimsiplast notepads or their datapads. Others looked as if they had been up all night. The bags under Wes Janson's eyes could only mean that he had been up to something. What that was, Tycho was pretty sure he didn't want to find out. There were days when ignorance truly was bliss. Better to leave things like that to the imagination than seek out answers and confirm your suspicions.
Besides, if Wes had done anything truly outlandish, he'd probably be in the medwing again. At least Tycho didn't have to worry about him trying to rig up condiment explosives anymore.
Something was amiss, though. Where was Corran Horn? It wasn't like him to miss briefings. Come to think of it, he'd been conspicuously absent the last several days. The last Tycho had heard, he was busy trying to get his 'volunteer' up to speed for the Rogues' upcoming assignment. Horn still must have been hard at work on that end. Shaking his head, Tycho decided to start without him. Corran could catch up later.
"Morning boys and girls," Tycho said. "What say we get down to business?"
"Someone turn the Colonel off," Wes said. "It's too early for this."
Ignoring Wes, Tycho continued. "We've got a new assignment from NRI that we'll be tending to for the next few weeks." He waited for the inevitable groans to subside. Requests from the New Republic's Intelligence branch were usually frowned upon by Starfighter Command pilots. "We're on escort duty for a diplomatic envoy."
"Escort duty?" Inyri Forge asked from the back of the room. "I don't mean to sound smug, but isn't that a bit below our skillset level? Any particular reason Cracken is requesting us?"
"Captain Forge, I'm glad you asked," Tycho said. He reached for the control panel atop his podium, dimming the lights and activating the holoprojector beside him. A starmap with a pair of highlighted regions appeared on the display. "We're being sent out to the Sierra sector in the Outer Rim territories. I imagine none of you are overly familiar with it, but you may be familiar with the star system it borders."
He gestured to the second highlighted region. "This would be the Sartinaynian system, home to Bastion and the Imperial Remnant."
"Cracken thinks there's potential for trouble?" Myn Donos asked.
Tycho nodded. "Potential, yes. General Cracken has assured us that we will merely be there as a precaution. NRI doesn't expect any sort of flare-up while the delegation is there."
"How reassuring," Derek "Hobbie" Klivian said from his seat near the front of the briefing room. "Where have I heard this one before?"
Wes raised a hand. "Ooh! Ooh! Pick me! I know!"
"Members of the diplomatic delegation are still forthcoming," Tycho said, ignoring the two senior Rogue officers, as well as his own unpleasant memories of the Adumar situation five years prior. "We'll be operating on typical escort duty parameters. There will be a safehouse setup that will serve as our base of operations. Once there, we'll operate on shifts patrolling the planet and the immediate sector. Bring along some music; chances are you'll all be facing some long shifts with nothing to do but stare at a starfield."
"You mean it's possible for us to fly our X-Wings and not get into a life-and-death fight?" Gavin Darklighter asked with mock incredulity.
Dorset Konnair patted Darklighter on the shoulder. "I sometimes forget some of you have never been in a regular squadron. Let me explain the meaning of the word 'routine' to you..."
Tycho shut off the holoprojector and returned the briefing room to its normal ambient lighting. "We don't have a definitive timetable yet, but expect to head to Plooma within the next few days. Once the diplomatic team has been fully assembled and briefed, we'll be off. Questions anyone?"
Silence filled the room for a few moments. Eventually, Janson's hand shot back into the air. Tycho scanned over the room, hoping that someone else would speak up. Sighing, he nodded towards Wes.
"The planet's called Plooma?" Wes asked, laughter edging in on his voice.
"Yes," Tycho replied, inwardly groaning. "Plooma."
"Plooma," Wes said aloud, looking thoughtful for a moment. "It kind of rolls off the tongue. Plooma. Plooma. Plooooooooooooma."
"If that will be all-"
"Plooooooooooomaaaaaaaaaaaa."
"You're dismissed," Tycho finished.
Gathering his stack of notes and his datapad, he left the briefing room before Wes could say Plooma one more time. Tycho made his way down the hallway, thinking that he should probably try and track down Corran to at least pass along a datacard with the briefing notes. Just as he was about to enter the rec room where he thought Corran might be, he felt his comlink go off. With a sigh, he fished it out of his pocket and thumbed it on.
"Celchu."
A voice belonging to one of the base's junior communication officers responded, "Colonel, there's a message coming in through encrypted HoloNet traffic for you."
"Thank you, I'll take it in my quarters."
He quickly made his way back to his living quarters and took a seat in front of his information terminal. Entering his access credentials, the terminal connected to the HoloNet feed on an audio-only link.
"Tycho, it's Wedge," a static-garbled voice said. "I'm a couple hours from getting back to base with one of our delegates. Could you do me a favor?"
"Sure thing," Tycho replied.
"Gather Wes and Hobbie and try to get a hold of Corran. Meet me in briefing room thirty-six."
With that, the feed cut off. Tycho shook his head and thumbed on his comlink again. It looked like he would have to listen to Wes giggle like a child for a little while longer.
Mara Jade had arrived on Coruscant a few days prior, and Corran had spent the majority of his time getting her up to speed for their impending mission, not to mention trying to calm her growing frustrations. They were talking over a cup of caf when he got the message from Tycho saying that Wedge was only a few hours away from Coruscant, and to get over to Rogue Squadron headquarters for a briefing with the fully-assembled delegation. Corran mentally smacked himself, realizing that he had forgotten the morning's briefing, but Tycho had apparently decided not to lay on the kitchen duty in punishment.
Mara stared at him with a blank expression as Corran read the message aloud from his datapad. “So, this is it, then," she said, shaking her head. "You’ve really roped me into this.”
“Sorry, Mara,” Corran said as they headed back to base. “If I was going to be miserable doing this, I just had to drag you along, too.”
“You’re such a pal.”
“I know.”
They walked in silence for the next few minutes. “So. Who’re the other two saps Antilles dragged into this mess?” Mara finally asked.
Corran shrugged. “I actually don’t know. It’ll be another Jedi, along with a Rogue-probably either Tycho, Wes, or Hobbie, since they have diplomatic experience.”
“I don’t know if I’d count what happened on Adumar as a diplomatic experience,” she pointed out.
“Me neither, but I’m not the one in charge.”
“Thank the Force for that.”
“Lightsaber incident.”
“Shut up.”
Corran grinned.
An hour later, they were sitting in one of Rogue Squadron's briefing rooms, waiting impatiently. Wes was repeating "Plooma" over and over, while Tycho and Hobbie were reading their datapads, trying desperately to ignore him. Mara's hand was inching closer and closer to her lightsaber. Corran sighed, deciding not to dissuade her from killing Wes, and checked his chrono. Wedge and his Jedi recruit should be arriving at any moment.
Corran glanced over at Mara, her Force sense as annoyed and disinterested as ever. Sensing him watching her, she shot him a disgusted look. "Lightsaber incident," he mouthed. Before she could retort, he sensed two people approaching the briefing room and breathed a sigh of relief. “Ah, that’ll be our fearless leader now,” he announced. He turned towards the door-
And Mara suddenly slammed her hands down on the table with brute force, forcing Hobbie to jump in his chair and Wes to trail off mid-syllable on one of his Ploooooomaaaaaaaaaaaas. Tycho merely raised an eyebrow in curiosity.
Mara turned to Corran again, the glare on her face much, much more annoyed than before, but before he could even give her a questioning glance, the door to the briefing room opened-
And in stepped Wedge, along with the Jedi he had recruited for this mission. Upon seeing who it was, Corran immediately grimaced and covered his face with his palm. The other Rogues, even Tycho, couldn't suppress their laughter.
Luke Skywalker greeted his old friends cheerfully, then his face lit up as he saw Mara sitting at the table. “Mara! So you’re in on this, too? Excellent!”
Very slowly, Mara tore her glowering gaze from Corran and gave Luke a sickly fake smile. “Well if it isn’t the great Jedi Master Luke Skywalker. I should have known they wouldn’t have been able to resist dragging you into this.”
Ignoring her animosity, Luke crossed the room in several long strides and opened his arms to Mara. Surprisingly, as annoyed as she was, she stood up and returned the hug-just briefly.
When she’d settled back in her seat, she hissed, “I swear, I’m going to kill someone for this.”
“You always want to kill someone; go for something with a little more meaning,” Corran pointed out, unable to resist teasing her.
Before Mara could smack him, he heard a cough from the doorway, then turned around to see Wedge gesturing towards the hallway. Wedge excused the two of them and they left the room. They stared at each other for a few seconds before Corran finally broke the silence.
“Oops?”
“Oops? That’s all you can say, Horn? Oops?!”
“Hey, I didn’t know you were asking Luke!" Corran defended himself. "If I’d have known that, I certainly wouldn’t have asked Mara.”
“Why did you ask Mara, anyway?" Wedge asked. "I thought she's not a Jedi?”
“No, not technically…but she might as well be, and I thought she’d be best for the job.”
“Meaning you wanted someone to tag along on this mission whom you could get drunk with in the evenings?”
“Maybe?”
Wedge sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “I could feel her antagonism and I don’t even have the Force. This is bad, Corran-very bad.”
His CO had a point...but suddenly, Corran realized all the entertainment potential this mission just gained. He wiggled his eyebrows. “Or...it couldbe very good. You and Iella finally hooked up on a diplomatic mission, remember?”
Wedge shook his head. “If this was any other situation, then yes, it would be highly entertaining and I’d be excited as anyone to see the sparks fly. But we need to be on our best behavior for the Ploomians. You know as well as I do that that won’t happen now.”
“Okay, maybe the two of them are a little bit…explosive…but I think you’re over exaggerating. They managed to make it through the Thrawn crisis fine, and that was back when Mara actually really did want to kill him, so this should be a piece of ryshcate.
“Besides, boss,” Corran continued, “I’m the one who’s going to be stuck with them.”
“And you’re going to enjoy every minute while you try to play matchmaker.”
“You got me. Yes, I am.”
“Get back inside.”
Corran took his seat next to Mara, all too aware that she and Luke were staring intently at each other from across the table. He briefly wondered if they were conversing through the Force, but his thought was interrupted when Wedge began to speak.
“Luke, Mara-thank you for accepting this mission. I know you’re both very busy and we appreciate you taking the time to assist the New Republic.”
“Anytime, Wedge,” Luke replied, smiling.
“My pleasure,” Mara growled.
“I trust Corran has been briefing you about the situation?” Wedge asked Mara.
“Well, he left out some pieces of information,” Mara said, glancing over at Luke, “but yeah, I get the gist.”
“Excellent. We’ll be heading out to Plooma-”
Wes began giggling incessantly.
“-Shortly, but before we do that we have one last thing to take care of.” Wedge took a piece of flimsi out of his pocket and tore it into three strips-two the same size, one shorter than the others. “Cracken wants another Rogue to fill the last spot of the diplomatic envoy, and I’d like it to be somebody with diplomatic experience. Unfortunately, our diplomatic experience is limited to the Adumar situation, and I need to be at the safehouse, so that leaves you three.” He gestured at Tycho, Wes, and Hobbie.
Tycho nodded. Wes grinned maniacally. Hobbie grimaced.
“To make this as fair as possible…” Wedge trailed off, holding up the pieces of flimsi in his hand so they all appeared to be the same length. The three men each grabbed a piece, then held them up to compare. Tycho seemed slightly relieved when his piece matched Wes's, although Wes seemed overtly disappointed.
Hobbie Klivian stared at the treacherous slip of flimsi in his hands. Slowly, he looked up and met his CO’s gaze.
Wedge shrugged. “Guess you’re it, Hobbs. Better pack your dress uniform.”
Hobbie slowly looked around the room, taking in his fellow diplomats. Corran was glancing back and forth at Luke and Mara, grinning wickedly. Luke looked more than excited at the prospect of an uninterrupted span of time in which he could bug Mara about her Jedi training. Mara herself looked positively murderous, even more so than usual.
Hobbie sighed and looked back down at the little strip of flimsi that had damned him to this fate.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” he muttered.
Colonel Tycho Celchu, Rogue Squadron's Executive Officer, looked over the collection of Rogues before him. Some were dutifully prepared to take notes on flimsiplast notepads or their datapads. Others looked as if they had been up all night. The bags under Wes Janson's eyes could only mean that he had been up to something. What that was, Tycho was pretty sure he didn't want to find out. There were days when ignorance truly was bliss. Better to leave things like that to the imagination than seek out answers and confirm your suspicions.
Besides, if Wes had done anything truly outlandish, he'd probably be in the medwing again. At least Tycho didn't have to worry about him trying to rig up condiment explosives anymore.
Something was amiss, though. Where was Corran Horn? It wasn't like him to miss briefings. Come to think of it, he'd been conspicuously absent the last several days. The last Tycho had heard, he was busy trying to get his 'volunteer' up to speed for the Rogues' upcoming assignment. Horn still must have been hard at work on that end. Shaking his head, Tycho decided to start without him. Corran could catch up later.
"Morning boys and girls," Tycho said. "What say we get down to business?"
"Someone turn the Colonel off," Wes said. "It's too early for this."
Ignoring Wes, Tycho continued. "We've got a new assignment from NRI that we'll be tending to for the next few weeks." He waited for the inevitable groans to subside. Requests from the New Republic's Intelligence branch were usually frowned upon by Starfighter Command pilots. "We're on escort duty for a diplomatic envoy."
"Escort duty?" Inyri Forge asked from the back of the room. "I don't mean to sound smug, but isn't that a bit below our skillset level? Any particular reason Cracken is requesting us?"
"Captain Forge, I'm glad you asked," Tycho said. He reached for the control panel atop his podium, dimming the lights and activating the holoprojector beside him. A starmap with a pair of highlighted regions appeared on the display. "We're being sent out to the Sierra sector in the Outer Rim territories. I imagine none of you are overly familiar with it, but you may be familiar with the star system it borders."
He gestured to the second highlighted region. "This would be the Sartinaynian system, home to Bastion and the Imperial Remnant."
"Cracken thinks there's potential for trouble?" Myn Donos asked.
Tycho nodded. "Potential, yes. General Cracken has assured us that we will merely be there as a precaution. NRI doesn't expect any sort of flare-up while the delegation is there."
"How reassuring," Derek "Hobbie" Klivian said from his seat near the front of the briefing room. "Where have I heard this one before?"
Wes raised a hand. "Ooh! Ooh! Pick me! I know!"
"Members of the diplomatic delegation are still forthcoming," Tycho said, ignoring the two senior Rogue officers, as well as his own unpleasant memories of the Adumar situation five years prior. "We'll be operating on typical escort duty parameters. There will be a safehouse setup that will serve as our base of operations. Once there, we'll operate on shifts patrolling the planet and the immediate sector. Bring along some music; chances are you'll all be facing some long shifts with nothing to do but stare at a starfield."
"You mean it's possible for us to fly our X-Wings and not get into a life-and-death fight?" Gavin Darklighter asked with mock incredulity.
Dorset Konnair patted Darklighter on the shoulder. "I sometimes forget some of you have never been in a regular squadron. Let me explain the meaning of the word 'routine' to you..."
Tycho shut off the holoprojector and returned the briefing room to its normal ambient lighting. "We don't have a definitive timetable yet, but expect to head to Plooma within the next few days. Once the diplomatic team has been fully assembled and briefed, we'll be off. Questions anyone?"
Silence filled the room for a few moments. Eventually, Janson's hand shot back into the air. Tycho scanned over the room, hoping that someone else would speak up. Sighing, he nodded towards Wes.
"The planet's called Plooma?" Wes asked, laughter edging in on his voice.
"Yes," Tycho replied, inwardly groaning. "Plooma."
"Plooma," Wes said aloud, looking thoughtful for a moment. "It kind of rolls off the tongue. Plooma. Plooma. Plooooooooooooma."
"If that will be all-"
"Plooooooooooomaaaaaaaaaaaa."
"You're dismissed," Tycho finished.
Gathering his stack of notes and his datapad, he left the briefing room before Wes could say Plooma one more time. Tycho made his way down the hallway, thinking that he should probably try and track down Corran to at least pass along a datacard with the briefing notes. Just as he was about to enter the rec room where he thought Corran might be, he felt his comlink go off. With a sigh, he fished it out of his pocket and thumbed it on.
"Celchu."
A voice belonging to one of the base's junior communication officers responded, "Colonel, there's a message coming in through encrypted HoloNet traffic for you."
"Thank you, I'll take it in my quarters."
He quickly made his way back to his living quarters and took a seat in front of his information terminal. Entering his access credentials, the terminal connected to the HoloNet feed on an audio-only link.
"Tycho, it's Wedge," a static-garbled voice said. "I'm a couple hours from getting back to base with one of our delegates. Could you do me a favor?"
"Sure thing," Tycho replied.
"Gather Wes and Hobbie and try to get a hold of Corran. Meet me in briefing room thirty-six."
With that, the feed cut off. Tycho shook his head and thumbed on his comlink again. It looked like he would have to listen to Wes giggle like a child for a little while longer.
Mara Jade had arrived on Coruscant a few days prior, and Corran had spent the majority of his time getting her up to speed for their impending mission, not to mention trying to calm her growing frustrations. They were talking over a cup of caf when he got the message from Tycho saying that Wedge was only a few hours away from Coruscant, and to get over to Rogue Squadron headquarters for a briefing with the fully-assembled delegation. Corran mentally smacked himself, realizing that he had forgotten the morning's briefing, but Tycho had apparently decided not to lay on the kitchen duty in punishment.
Mara stared at him with a blank expression as Corran read the message aloud from his datapad. “So, this is it, then," she said, shaking her head. "You’ve really roped me into this.”
“Sorry, Mara,” Corran said as they headed back to base. “If I was going to be miserable doing this, I just had to drag you along, too.”
“You’re such a pal.”
“I know.”
They walked in silence for the next few minutes. “So. Who’re the other two saps Antilles dragged into this mess?” Mara finally asked.
Corran shrugged. “I actually don’t know. It’ll be another Jedi, along with a Rogue-probably either Tycho, Wes, or Hobbie, since they have diplomatic experience.”
“I don’t know if I’d count what happened on Adumar as a diplomatic experience,” she pointed out.
“Me neither, but I’m not the one in charge.”
“Thank the Force for that.”
“Lightsaber incident.”
“Shut up.”
Corran grinned.
An hour later, they were sitting in one of Rogue Squadron's briefing rooms, waiting impatiently. Wes was repeating "Plooma" over and over, while Tycho and Hobbie were reading their datapads, trying desperately to ignore him. Mara's hand was inching closer and closer to her lightsaber. Corran sighed, deciding not to dissuade her from killing Wes, and checked his chrono. Wedge and his Jedi recruit should be arriving at any moment.
Corran glanced over at Mara, her Force sense as annoyed and disinterested as ever. Sensing him watching her, she shot him a disgusted look. "Lightsaber incident," he mouthed. Before she could retort, he sensed two people approaching the briefing room and breathed a sigh of relief. “Ah, that’ll be our fearless leader now,” he announced. He turned towards the door-
And Mara suddenly slammed her hands down on the table with brute force, forcing Hobbie to jump in his chair and Wes to trail off mid-syllable on one of his Ploooooomaaaaaaaaaaaas. Tycho merely raised an eyebrow in curiosity.
Mara turned to Corran again, the glare on her face much, much more annoyed than before, but before he could even give her a questioning glance, the door to the briefing room opened-
And in stepped Wedge, along with the Jedi he had recruited for this mission. Upon seeing who it was, Corran immediately grimaced and covered his face with his palm. The other Rogues, even Tycho, couldn't suppress their laughter.
Luke Skywalker greeted his old friends cheerfully, then his face lit up as he saw Mara sitting at the table. “Mara! So you’re in on this, too? Excellent!”
Very slowly, Mara tore her glowering gaze from Corran and gave Luke a sickly fake smile. “Well if it isn’t the great Jedi Master Luke Skywalker. I should have known they wouldn’t have been able to resist dragging you into this.”
Ignoring her animosity, Luke crossed the room in several long strides and opened his arms to Mara. Surprisingly, as annoyed as she was, she stood up and returned the hug-just briefly.
When she’d settled back in her seat, she hissed, “I swear, I’m going to kill someone for this.”
“You always want to kill someone; go for something with a little more meaning,” Corran pointed out, unable to resist teasing her.
Before Mara could smack him, he heard a cough from the doorway, then turned around to see Wedge gesturing towards the hallway. Wedge excused the two of them and they left the room. They stared at each other for a few seconds before Corran finally broke the silence.
“Oops?”
“Oops? That’s all you can say, Horn? Oops?!”
“Hey, I didn’t know you were asking Luke!" Corran defended himself. "If I’d have known that, I certainly wouldn’t have asked Mara.”
“Why did you ask Mara, anyway?" Wedge asked. "I thought she's not a Jedi?”
“No, not technically…but she might as well be, and I thought she’d be best for the job.”
“Meaning you wanted someone to tag along on this mission whom you could get drunk with in the evenings?”
“Maybe?”
Wedge sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “I could feel her antagonism and I don’t even have the Force. This is bad, Corran-very bad.”
His CO had a point...but suddenly, Corran realized all the entertainment potential this mission just gained. He wiggled his eyebrows. “Or...it couldbe very good. You and Iella finally hooked up on a diplomatic mission, remember?”
Wedge shook his head. “If this was any other situation, then yes, it would be highly entertaining and I’d be excited as anyone to see the sparks fly. But we need to be on our best behavior for the Ploomians. You know as well as I do that that won’t happen now.”
“Okay, maybe the two of them are a little bit…explosive…but I think you’re over exaggerating. They managed to make it through the Thrawn crisis fine, and that was back when Mara actually really did want to kill him, so this should be a piece of ryshcate.
“Besides, boss,” Corran continued, “I’m the one who’s going to be stuck with them.”
“And you’re going to enjoy every minute while you try to play matchmaker.”
“You got me. Yes, I am.”
“Get back inside.”
Corran took his seat next to Mara, all too aware that she and Luke were staring intently at each other from across the table. He briefly wondered if they were conversing through the Force, but his thought was interrupted when Wedge began to speak.
“Luke, Mara-thank you for accepting this mission. I know you’re both very busy and we appreciate you taking the time to assist the New Republic.”
“Anytime, Wedge,” Luke replied, smiling.
“My pleasure,” Mara growled.
“I trust Corran has been briefing you about the situation?” Wedge asked Mara.
“Well, he left out some pieces of information,” Mara said, glancing over at Luke, “but yeah, I get the gist.”
“Excellent. We’ll be heading out to Plooma-”
Wes began giggling incessantly.
“-Shortly, but before we do that we have one last thing to take care of.” Wedge took a piece of flimsi out of his pocket and tore it into three strips-two the same size, one shorter than the others. “Cracken wants another Rogue to fill the last spot of the diplomatic envoy, and I’d like it to be somebody with diplomatic experience. Unfortunately, our diplomatic experience is limited to the Adumar situation, and I need to be at the safehouse, so that leaves you three.” He gestured at Tycho, Wes, and Hobbie.
Tycho nodded. Wes grinned maniacally. Hobbie grimaced.
“To make this as fair as possible…” Wedge trailed off, holding up the pieces of flimsi in his hand so they all appeared to be the same length. The three men each grabbed a piece, then held them up to compare. Tycho seemed slightly relieved when his piece matched Wes's, although Wes seemed overtly disappointed.
Hobbie Klivian stared at the treacherous slip of flimsi in his hands. Slowly, he looked up and met his CO’s gaze.
Wedge shrugged. “Guess you’re it, Hobbs. Better pack your dress uniform.”
Hobbie slowly looked around the room, taking in his fellow diplomats. Corran was glancing back and forth at Luke and Mara, grinning wickedly. Luke looked more than excited at the prospect of an uninterrupted span of time in which he could bug Mara about her Jedi training. Mara herself looked positively murderous, even more so than usual.
Hobbie sighed and looked back down at the little strip of flimsi that had damned him to this fate.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” he muttered.