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The breach charge detonated and the doors flung open as the COMPFORCE troopers rushed into the room followed by the Major. They all stopped as they saw the variety of equipment stacked up on the walls.

"Damn." One of the troopers whispered to himself.

The Major was even taken aback by what he saw, slugthrowers and blasters of a thousand different shapes and sizes lining the walls. Quite an inventory, "Typical Greenie."

Outside a pair of troopers spraypainted in bright red letters "Xeno!" and "Greenie" on the side of the wall along with an imperial crest, in addition a copy of Imperial Directive 198 was plastered to the wall. Inside the group was hard at work. Decorations were torn from the walls and weapons stashed in bags as the COMPFORCE personnel confiscated every weapon they could lug out of the shop and set to work destroying the rest.

As the last bag was hurled onto the truck the assault team leader pulled out a trio of Thermal Detonators and tossed them inside. Seconds later the clap of their detonations echoed throughout the city.

* * *

Colonel Akaga suddenly stiffened as the sound reached his ear, "Thermals?"

Groz had escaped the city towards the late of the night and decided to sleep into the morning. He awoke about noon, under one of the few trees in the area. He had been expecting a forest. Something shaded and dark, with trees and branches. Something like home. But what he got was a Savannah. It was not terrain he was accustomed to, but he decided to stay. It was yet another test of his heritage. And he would survive until he could return to town.

The newly dubbed "Special Missions Command" was nearing completion.
Already the squad had done a fair share of bartering with the Walker crews for supplies and equipment to outfit their little headquarters.

The buisness of setting themselves up had kept Special Missions out of Command's hair, an opportunity the XO should have been grateful for.
Kara was still cracking jokes about the man's lack of nerve.

"Big time scout troopr hopeful, huh? Somewhere along the way down he must have lost his choobies." She said as she cleaned her rifle.

"Ease up, Miss." Flight said from across the table, also in the process of stripping and cleaning his piece. "I think you've made it pretty clear the guy's an easy mark. Besides, the joke's kind of getting old."

"Yeah? Well he just better not lose it on a combat mission. Unlikely as that possibility is."

"The possibility of us going into combat? Or the possibility of him cracking like an egg?" Asked "Techie" Nascimento, who was hooking up the place's electronics.

"Us going into combat. The Militia's been smushed, theres no real enemy left, and all the fringers are gonna have their guns confiscated by the end of the week." She looked down the sight of the carbine and did some adjusting on the iron sight. "We're effecively useless. Unless someone is dumb enough to need a good carpet bombing. Then it goes to us and then to the station. ARCs come in, Bombs go down, and its back to base for us. Thats all we got to look forward to."

Yep. It was gonna be one dull deployment....

"Something wrong, Colonel?"

Charr heard the words loud and clear.
And he didnt say a word.
Calmly he nodded to the Officer.
"Colonel, it seems you have a situation on your hands. Far be it for me as a loyal citizen of the Empire to stand in your way. I'll take my leave now, if you dont mind."

With that, the rodian casually strolled away from the courthouse, heading home as though nothing had happened at all.

Duke paced about the grand hall. The lack of activity was starting to get to most of everyone in the palace. The Twi'lek slave approached him. " Master Duke, Sir, breakfast is ready. " Duke followed her into the mess hall of the palace, where several of Bolba's hired guns and smugglers stuffed their faces with all manner of food. Duke looked on in disgust at some of the other species. He understood how Diana felt in a way, being one of very few people that were closest to human, not counting the 2 or 3 that were actually human, against the countless number of others who ranged from Gammoreans to Duros, and even a large number of the different Nikto species.

The Twi'lek girl remained nearby as Duke found a spot to sit down, then walked off and came back to serve him his breakfast. She remained nearby unless one of the many thugs demanded service. When Bolba was busy, Duke was the temporary master the slaves obeyed.

Elsewhere in the streets, a group of thugs decided they had it with the halt on operations. Just because Bolba ordered that no smuggling or other acts that were their usual doing be done, apparently doesn't mean they can't act on their own. A trio of goons spotted a seemingly well-to-do man alone near an alley, and quietly caught up with him.

" Excuse me sir, but are you aware of the tax on street safety? " One of them asked. " Street safety? ... What? " the man asked, confused. " Oh it's quite simple. You pay us what credits you got, and you'll be able to safely go about your business. " The man understood what was going on, and started to quiver. " Man, hurry up, I see a stormie. " another thug said, spotting a patrolling trooper just round the corner a bit away from where they were.

The thugs pulled the man behind the side of a building out of sight of the trooper. " No witnesses. " the 3rd said, pulling out a concealled blaster. " Are you nuts, man? Bolba'll have our asses for dinner if you piss off the Imps. " the 1st one said. Without heeding the warning, the thug aimed at the trooper from behind the side wall of the building and fired at the trooper. Before he could see if he hit his mark, the other thugs pulled him back. " IDIOT! " the 1st one said, backhanding him across the face.

With the thugs' attention now being on each other, the man they were mugging darted off into the street. " HELP! HELP! THERE'S ARMED THUGS RIGHT OVER HERE! " " Dammit, now see what happened? " the 2nd thug said. The 3rd aimed his blaster at the man and fired a few times, 2 shots blew through his back, and the last pierced his head, killing him.

" Oh great, now we're wanted for murder on an open street. Way to go, genius. " The 1st thug angrily said. Too angry at the trigger-happy member of the trio to start running away, the leader of the group instead started to wrestle with the shooter, which lasted a few seconds before he punched him out into the open street and on the ground.

Twenty Kilometers south-west of Port Loka the Planetary Defense Force of Seya-Qu had gathered what was left of its strength and was now ready to launch a counterattack at the only place they felt they could reasonably stand some chance of success. Without the arrival of reinforcements from Quon City all that stood against them was a single Reconissance Company, but those reinforcements where only two hours away.

The attack began as storm clouds blew up over the port. Slowly six modified repulsortrucks swung toward the port and their crews conducted some hasty calculations. In the back a quad mount of modified PLX-2 Missile Launchers swung onto target and the missiles programmed.

They fired, a hissing massed volley of missiles that arched high into the air, and cut out as programmed, fast becoming unguided bombs. One hundred and twenty minature proton torpedo warheads rained from the sky, unguided and out of fuel they detonated as they hit the ground and buildings for a full five kilometers around their aimpoint, a general barrage of explosives from a bygone age.

Slugthrower equipped infantry and combat technicals began to speed toward the port as the crews for their artillery systems hastily reloaded fro another barrage.