The crew enters the ship, and they are transported out of the hangar. Escorted by fighters, they make their way to the abandoned station. The hangar is dark, and cold, barely shielded from the void of space. They're met by a stormtrooper who greets them with a salute. "We're trying to get the power back on so we can scan the entire place. We need you to head down into the power couplings and fix it."
She sees one is delirious from a head wound. The other has taken a blaster bolt to the thigh. "What do you want, human?"
Fendrat turn on flashlight and look around. He wonder how long time this station was abonded and why Empire decided to take it back? " The way to power couplings is clear? No unexpected guests? Will you show it to us? " He asked stormtrooper and follow him, when he guide them.
The whole place is dark, the sound of rusty metal groaning in the air. "You'll be provided with an escort, yes. We're not sure if it's clear." He nods, and a group of troopers lead the engineers through pitch black corridors, past a group of criminals, tied up and kneeling against the walls. "You're going that way? Don't think you're coming back, mates!" He laughs, until a trooper hits him in the back of the head with a rifle butt. The troopers lead them to a large windowed area, faint pinkish light coming in from the nebula outside. "All right. Give us a second, we're working on the map".
Fendrat rise eyebrow noticing criminals, when soldier knocked out one of them. "So station have locals before we come here? And about what they are talking? Why we not come back?" He give a question.
The young officer leading the troopers looks up. "Wha-? Oh, don't worry about those scum. They're just afraid of the dark. They think there's a monster deep in the station killing them. In reality, the criminals were probably just killing each other and blaming it on the boogeyman. We're fine. Nothing in here can stand up to a squad of stormtroopers". One of the men shouts "Ooh rah!" The officer fiddles with his map. "Getting interference of some kind, sorry. These scum aren't locals, they're just hiding out here. This was a research station back before the Clone Wars. It got abandoned to cut costs." He jumps a little, as a loud banging sound echoes from far off, reverberating through the dark halls. He laughs nervously. "Damned place is falling apart".
"I want them interrogated. I want to know of any contacts they might have made with rebels..." Gailte paused. "How many are of them and what are their races." She asked.
"We've taken a few dozen, ma'am. They're pretty diverse. Some are human, but a lot are alien scum. We don't know how many are in the rest of the station. We've got some engineers over to reboot the power, so we can scan the whole thing. Something about the way this place was made is blocking our own scanners. There could be more".
Scary sounds of echoes, abonded station, frighted guys escaping from inside. It was bad signal, realy bad signal and Fendrat didn't like it. "No ofence, but I remeber from accademy a lot of things what could be deathly treat for squad of Storm troopers." He said and heavy sigh. It is seems his mission want be easy how they told to them. "Show me that, maybe I will fix the map." He steped to officer with map, looking for wrong.
Gailte nods. "Check their profiles to see if there is anyone of interest among them, and transport them onboard for interrogation..." She paused. "I want the station secured and a listening post established there. The rebels will use this place as a resupply... Checking we can hide ships safely in nebula. Give me the data on the commander of the station."
After a while the voice comes back. "There's someone who claims to be a former Rebel, and someone who claims they have intel on the Zann consortium. I'm sending the Rebel. Any interest in the other one? These criminals don't seem to be part of any one group, just a bunch of rats, hiding together in the same hole". A banging sound is heard. "Send a patrol to investigate, Lieutenant." He pauses. "Sorry for the disruption, ma'am. I'm sending you that intel now." A hologram appears, showing Gailte a face that she vaguely recognises, that of a Republic scientist who was famous in her childhood. He was killed during the Clone Wars.
He hands Fendrat the datapad with the map. Like he said, there seems to be interference, but Fendrat can tune it out. "Don't worry, Chief Engineer. We're trained to handle issues like this". A loud banging erupts on another deck.
Fendrat have doubts about that, but decided not commented. He quickly fix datapad and give it back to officer. "Very well officer. Let's go, to bring back power."
"Bring him on board, to high guarded cell." Gailte orders. "Transport the prisoners and fortyfie the facility in such a way, that you allow enter the facility, but not exit." She turned to Avina. "So? Can we use Neva as cover and facility as our eyes?"
The officer takes it and leads him through a number of side corridors, into a maintenance area. "All right, the problem should be coming from in there". He shines his flashlight down a maintenance walkway that is lit up occasionally by the electrical bolts of a damaged cable.
"As you command, ma'am". The shuttles fly back to the Netuno, depositing prisoners. Avina thinks for a moment. "Possibly. The problem with the nebula is that the Rebels will know that you can hide there, just like we did. It probably wouldn't be much of a surprise. If we can use the sensors of the station, though, that could be useful. I wonder what they were studying, here in deep space?"
Loreley acknowledged the order and relayed it to her squadron. Hovering free from the docking clamps, Delta squadron launched from the hangar and flew towards the nebula. 'Delta, loose formation, I want as much sensor coverage as we can get,' Loreley commanded, leading the formation into the pink cloud.
She receives confirmation, the squad notifying that she's been understood. They spread out around her craft. "Ma'am", Silvan says, "I'm picking up a faint signal. Should I investigate?"
The moment its tube opened, DT-L30 knew what was coming. He attempts to shoot at the missile before it even leaves the X-Wing's silo.
Loreley answered Silvan, 'Roger, Gold One. Take Gold flight and check it out.' The squadron leader checked her own instruments, while flying through the soup.
