Under the Cover of Armour
Difficulty:
Planet: Myrkr
Required: Colonel (Army/Intel)
Target: Mandalorian Base
Comments: A number of Mandalorian ships signatures have been registered traversing to and from the Myrkr system. High Command suspects the Mandalorians have an outpost or staging ground somewhere on the planet. Find and infiltrate the base, gaining whatever intelligence you can. If you are discovered, make all efforts to disable the outpost.
Reward: 4,000 credits for returning undetected with valuable information. 2,000 credits otherwise.

Silent, Trinity watched the dock shrink until it was a silver smudge against the planet's surface and became indistinguishable among the jungle of skyscrapers and high rises. Then the planet itself was hanging in the black sky behind her, small and insignificant until it, too, blinked out of existence altogether, hidden somewhere among the millions of white pinpricks that now surrounded the courier's view screen. A sigh escaped the Lorrdian's lips. It was this moment, in between the rush of Confederation routine and the sharp jeopardy of distant missions that she grounded herself. Being left to the company of the stars and the quiet whirring of ship engines had always held appeal to her. Well, almost alone. She glanced sideways at her assigned partner before turning back to the piloting controls in front of her.

Isayev Kuryakin. He looked like Confederation intelligence, clean cut and neat. The old scar that snaked across the better part of his face gave him a sense of legitimacy—a man that had seen his share of skirmishes and knew how to sacrifice when necessity required it. Like most men, Trinity did not find him handsome or unattractive. She'd never, as her disapproving mother constantly parroted, developed an interest for the opposite sex. Cockpits would always hold more appeal to her than their human counterparts. As long as he could do his job without getting either of them killed, Kuryakin could have been nothing but scars and the squadron leader would not have cared. He could have lacked a head altogether if he performed well.

Small talk might have been the stupidest social convention to ever plague society. Every time her family's status forced her into political gatherings, it took all of Trinity's effort not to physically assault each of the guests. She didn't care about how so-and-so was doing, she didn't care about the weather, and she sure as hell didn't care about Senator Onara's bloody cat. Not only did that woman always insist on talking about her feline's daily accomplishments, but she actually carried the little monster in an enormous handbag, stroking it through a mesh cover and giggling with excitement when someone wanted to meet Fluffy. Oh, Trinity had someone she wanted Fluffy to meet. She wanted to introduce him to a highly compressed beam of high-speed ions. Hopefully, this intelligence officer would prove to have more sense than silly senators—they usually did. The Lorrdian had piloted for similar missions dozens of times, and usually they were all the same: arrogant and straight-to-business, not bothering with anything outside of protocol.

Mandalorians. It was always Mandalorians, the warrior people who believed themselves superior to everyone else simply because they were Mandalorians. This mission was, thankfully, nowhere near Mandalore. The Intel Division was annoyed at him for whatever they thought he’d done, but not annoyed enough to try to get him killed. No warm welcome would be found if he set foot on Mandalore, he was sure the Ordo clan had discovered who was suspected to be behind the escape of their prisoner, and he was sure the ship he was currently flying and the identity he’d had on Mandalore was involved somehow.

It was hardly a blip on the radar as far as busted covers went. But this operation didn’t need covers, just a firm hand, quiet step, and a sharp blade. Myrkr had no cities, no traffic beyond the spotted vessels that were suspected to be in Mandalorian control. The Intel Division vessel, still named Righteous Annoyance and under neutral listings, would be their biggest boon, the cloaking technology the thing that was going to bring them to the surface without being spotted.

He had been paired up with an officer not connected with the Intel Division, a squadron leader with family links throughout the Confederation military, and a mother in the senate. Another of the privileged masses coming in to climb the Confederation ladder. No doubt Trinity Blythe had earned whatever promotions she’d been given, but he wasn’t here to bring a magnifying glass to her career.

Thank the Stars she didn’t seemed inclined towards conversation. After dead end assignment after dead end assignment he was ready to kill someone with his bare hands. He knew he was being wasted on milk runs on purpose, because the old men with their cushy chairs didn’t like some independent thinking. But now he finally had real work, work that fit his skills, the partner was a bothersome addition, but he couldn’t argue with those who gave him his orders.

They were in hyperspace currently, hopping from their last stop towards the outer system of Myrkr. They’d approach the planet at sublight speed and under cover, but now Isayev was looking over the collection of coordinates describing where the vessels coming and going had entered or left the system, entered or left the atmosphere. He’d input the data into the navigational programme, giving him an overview of the general area the vessels were paying attention to. There was no accurate coordinates, but they could narrow it down to an area. When they approached they could initiate a scan and come to their conclusions through those readings combined with this data.

Trinity Blythe had the ships controls, but he was dealing with navigation and the scanning equipment. He’d already shown her the data and the side of the planet they would need to approach in order to get a scan in.

It was all shaping up and going smoothly now, but Isayev was sure once they were on the surface and on their way to the location their plans would need to be revised often and repeatedly.

Trinity intently watched the panels in front of her, almost wishing for something to go wrong so that she had something more to do. Her attention was kept carefully on the flickering screens in front of to prevent the risk of trivial conversation with her newest acquaintance. Instead, her mind flitted silently from one aspect of her current mission to the next, considering everything from past encounters with the Mandalorians to the known topography of her destination. Her ears inevitably searched the low humming of the engines every few minutes for irregularities. Those years of training had made her senses automatically cautious. Even more so now that she sat in the pilot's chair of a less familiar model, something much larger than what she would have normally been assigned. What was this thing been called? Something entirely unprofessional. The Ripe Annoyance? Maybe her partner had provided the vessel's identity; she supposed it didn't really matter as long as he wasn't the actual namesake.

A chirp from the far control panel alerted the Lorrdian to the closing proximity between her and her target. Any closer and they would risk detection. She knew that a seasoned man like the one beside her had understood the sound and recognized it's meaning, but she verbalized her actions as a matter of practical protocol.

“Pulling out of hyperspace.”

Her practiced fingers swept across the array of colored buttons, and the stars that had been streaking past the view screen suddenly regained their shape. Another set of commands and the courier became invisible. Again, Trinity announced her actions.

“Cloaking activated. Powering down engines.” Trinity stopped her announcement there, deciding she had provided Kuryakin with enough obvious information. He seemed like a smart enough kid.

As always, after any time spent at hyperspeed and without the usual company of Trinity's squadron, the courier's new pace felt impossibly slow. The vessel would now have to crawl towards Myrkr, dragging across space like a Hut traversing Tatooine. She had never shot a Hut before. For some reason, when she imagined taking a blast at one, the beam bounced off their rubbery flesh like gelatin. Sometimes she thought about aiming a blaster at her mother. Never to injure the silly woman, but enough to scare into forgetting how to speak. That image made Trinity grin, a reaction that she did not attempt to hide.

From the corner of her eye, the Lorrdian noted Kuryakin's movements as he began a scan of the distant planet and it's surrounding area. She leaned back in her chair, patient for the results.

((What does Izzy's scan turn up?))

Izzy's scan brings up some definite heat and energy signatures from the planet's surface and a little bit below. They're originating from the foothills of one of Myrkr's mountain ranges, in an area with little to no forested cover. What they can assume is that the base may be partially underground.

The chirp of the navigational systems indicating the end to their hyperspace jump signalled the end of Isayev’s perusal of the data. He deactivated the display and stowed his datapad, hearing Squadron Leader Blythe’s words, but not acknowledging them. He busied himself with checking his equipment as the view of hyperspace before them turned into a black void filled with blinking stars. In the distance, he could spy the spherical shape of Myrkr.

He bent over the co-pilt’s controls as the sublight engines kicked in, driving them towards the planet. Blythe spoke again, this time announcing the activation of the cloaking field, and lowering the power output to the engines. They were going in silent, as they’d planned. Now it was up to Blythe to get them close enough to the planet for a scan of the area they thought was likely for the Mandalorian base that hid among the thickly forested surface of Myrkr.

Time passed slowly as they inched closer to the planet, but eventually they reached it and Isayev let his fingers dance over the controls to activate the scanning systems. They’d get something at least, thanks to the power behind the technology. He studied the scans, spotting clear readings of energy outputs and heat that stood out among the forest. “Clear energy readings,” he said, checking the scanners again for extra measure. “Clusters of heat, nothing like the rest of the surface. I imagine we’ve got them. Putting the coordinates into the navigation system.”

He input the numbers, letting Blythe look at them. It was just the area that was the source of most of the high readings, indicating the possible location. “No traffic right now,” he informed, reaching out and pointing at a point a distance from the indicated area. “If we land here, we’ll have the high hills covering our landing. Not too far to walk, either.” He shrugged, leaving the final decision to Blythe. She was the pilot, after all.

With the scan done, and his input offered, he rose from the co-pilot’s seat. He picked up his utility belt hanging off the back of the seat, fastening it deftly over his standard Confederation body armour, the Baragwin stealth unit attached as well. He ran his hands over the pouches quickly, taking note of what other equipment he had on his person, everything he thought he needed for this mission.

He glanced out the viewscreen, seeing the vision of Myrkr slowly getting closer.

“Clear energy readings, clusters of heat, nothing like the rest of the surface. I imagine we’ve got them. Putting the coordinates into the navigation system.”

Trinity’s “thank you” came automatically, a tendency engrained into her character from several years of having her knuckles swatted by impatient governesses. Avoiding small talk was one thing, but manners were another.

When the panel to her left breedled, the Lorrdian leaned forward in her chair to consider the figures that appeared on the screen, silently comparing them to her knowledge of the planet and her experience as a pilot. She glanced up at Myrkr. It loomed in the far distance, slightly green against the black space around it, unaware of the two officers who approached it. Well, hopefully unaware. Only morons ever claimed to be absolutely sure of themselves.

“No traffic right now. If we land here, we’ll have the high hills covering our landing. Not too far to walk, either.”

The intelligence officer pointed a section of the screen as he spoke, and Trinity noted the topography as Kuryakin described it. He had seen his share of missions—like most accomplished Confederates, his hands had been weathered by experience, reaffirming that they belonged to a man who welcomed work. Good. She didn’t need to enter into a high risk mission with some half-arse pansy. As soon as his explanation ended, her partner shrugged and rose from his chair to collect and inspect his things. Trinity offered him only a backward glance, the larger part of her attention remaining trained on the displayed data, picking through each number and analyzing her colleague’s suggestion. The responsibility to steer the ship safely to the planet’s surface belonged to her. A few more seconds, and she concluded that Kuryakin’s assessment, however obvious, was the clear and best course of action.


Slowly, the courier drifted closer to Myrkr, propelled forward by weak engines and drawn in by the invisible hands of gravity, until the planet was centered neatly in the view screen. A patchwork of green covered the surface—thousands and thousands of indigenous trees meshed together into one enormous forest. Only placid clouds interrupted the color scheme with thin blotches of white. That, and the occasional brown streak of a low mountain or plain. Trinity supposed most people would have found the aesthetics pleasing; to her it was little more than a giant, leafy blanket. A tactic used by the Mandalorians to hide from prying eyes. No, Myrkr was not a potential vacation spot for a week of picnicking and indulging in nature. It was Myrkr, located at cooridinates N-7 of the Inner Rim, 9,560 kilometers in diameter, with a rotation period of 24 hours, an orbital period of 324 days, and the object of her mission.

Trinity pitched the ship to the left, angling the vessel to enter the atmosphere near the hills that Kuryakin had pointed out earlier. It meant landing theRighteous Whatever a good distance south of the concealed base. A long walk had never killed anyone, though, and she trusted that Mr. Intel could make the journey without any huffing or puffing in the new altitude. For a brief moment, Trinity wondered about the scar that wrapped around his face like a tattoo gone wrong. Not because she found it particularly horrendous or distasteful. She wanted to know what in the hell he’d been too slow to avoid that had marked up his face like the world’s largest cat on a human scratching post. Ducking did wonders to avoid battle scars.

Sweeping her fingers across the control panel, the squadron leader pointed the nose of the courier more directly at the planet, feeling the vessel pick up speed as it approached the atmosphere. Everything about these maneuvers were routine, but she still reluctantly announced particular actions.

“Entering the atmosphere in ten, engaging dampers.” As soon as she executed her own command, Trinity felt the ship pull back against the gravitational force that had been reeling it towards the surface. She smiled. The feeling of having such complete control over such a common natural element and the abrupt kick of the dampers—she could have been happy on just that. And the occasional drink. If only a safe way to mix the two existed.

Piloting had become a second nature to the woman, and she prided herself in the accuracy and safety of whatever craft she sat behind the wheel of. The courier slipped through the atmosphere, rattling expectedly as it broke the barrier and quivering through spots of high pressure. Kuryakin had been perfectly accurate in his prediction of the high hills. The rocky outcrops served as a sort of stony wall from the surroundings, sheltering an open patch that had been born to be a landing spot. Hiking down to forest-level would be tedious, but the ideal concealment was more than worth it. Wordlessly, Trinity continued to adjust the ship’s path until the landing gears touched solid ground with a definitive thump.

As Blythe announced the ship entering the atmosphere of Myrkr, Isayev settled again into the co-pilot’s seat. They’d be on the surface in less than ten minutes he predicted, feeling the slight bump in the vessel as they passed the outer limit of the atmosphere. He could feel the inertial dampeners kick in, preventing the g-forces from throwing them around like rag dolls, but still making them feel the ship’s descent. Slight turbulence rattled the ship as they passed through the atmosphere towards the planet’s surface.

Blythe settled the ship into a steady descent, flying low over the surface to avoid any scans, using the mountains as a cover against any scanning equipment the Mandalorians were likely to have. At most, Isayev imagined the cloaking device and the low-key flying had mostly saved them from being spotted, but he was sure a few keen Mandalorians knew to expect anything. They hadn’t seemed to have triggered any alarms yet, but it was never smart to underestimate Mandalorians.

As Blythe slowed the ship, a silent indication that she planned to land, Isayev rose from his seat again and made his way to the hold, stopping by his footlocker to pick up the rest of his equipment. As he pulled out his gloves, he felt a shudder go through the ship as the landing struts settled on the ground. He flexed his fingers as he slipped the Echani gloves on, the tight fabric a snug fit. He settled the shock gauntlets over them, flexing his fingers again to make sure he still had full range of motion.

Pulling his swordbelt out of the footlocker, he fastened it over his utility belt, checking the blastsword in its sheath before he tucked the vibroknife into his boot. Just in case, he plucked up a couple of packets of rations and tucked them into his utility belt. One could never know how long an operation would last. He pulled on his headset comlink as he approached the ramp, hearing Blythe’s steps approaching behind him.

“Comlink on the correct frequency?” He queried as he hit the controls to lower the ramp, adjusting the frequency of his own comlink with his other hand. Hopefully they wouldn’t get separated and need to resort to the comlinks, but there was always the risk as so he believed it was better to be safe than sorry.

He pulled out his datapad before he ascended the ramp, marking their location on the map so they could better get their bearings, tucking it away securely once the job was done. When they both were down the ramp, he tapped in the orders to close up the ramp and lock-up, securing the ship against intruders.

Taking a moment to look at their surroundings, he found Myrkr to be a picturesque bountiful planet, but that was the limit of it. In the end, it was just another planet with another mission to do, he gave Blythe a glance before he began picking his way over the rocky landscape in the direction they needed to go.

Trinity left the padded pilot’s chair to gather her necessary things—an assortment of rations and guns and scanners—nonchalantly strapping them onto her person. She didn’t pause to look when the door unlatched with a gush of pressurized air, allowing a breeze to herd in the faint smell of pine and sweetgum. A few seconds, and the temperature of the cabin had nudged downward to match the weather outside; the cool air would be heaven after the long and arduous walk to the base.

Clipping her comlink to her collar, Trinity took a few steps towards the exit and her partner. He had already pulled together his necessary provisions and stood, practiced, by the vessel’s entrance. The man didn’t seem too concerned with his colleague. Without looking in her direction, his fingers swept across a control panel and the ramp rumbled down. Either he considered her a nuisance, an unfortunate necessity in his duties, or he was arrogant. Or, there was the third option. That he simple did not like conversation and was one of the few that dedicated their attention completely to their work. If the Lorrdian had been a kinder person, she would have assumed the latter. But the woman had never tended towards nicety.

“Comlink on the correct frequency?”

“Yeah,” No, I thought it would be funny if we came all of this way and I kept it on the wrong frequency. “All set.”

Kuryakin descended the ramp first, and Blythe watched him retrieve his datapad to punch in their coordinates before again stashing it away. Her mother had always warned her about making quick judgments, but what did that silly woman know? If Trinity had spent her life listening to Felicity Blythe, she would have been laced up in some poufy pink ball gown right now, parading up and down local route or learning about correct utensil usage. The better half of her was leaning towards disliking the intelligence officer, although her better half disliked most people. She almost could make herself dislike him enough to hope for a grizzly bear to barrel through the tree line and add to the mark on his face. Almost.

Another wordless glance, and her partner had closed the ship and headed out into the terrain. His movements over the rocky plateau boasted that he’d done this before, that he was familiar with the landscape and comfortable in his navigation. The squadron leader considered throwing a rock at his head to see if it knocked him off balance. Or turning the volume up on the comlink and screaming. Of course, neither would happen—she prided herself in professionalism. But daydreaming was practically harmless. Her thoughts only occupied her for a moment before she followed his lead and picked her way across clearing.

The outcrop continued for several hundred yards. Once they’d moved away from the ship, most of the dusty ground was crowded with clusters of waist-high boulders or low, eroded craters. Fifteen minutes passed, and the rocks were replaced by patches of flowering skyrocket and golden currant bushes, an indication of the obvious forest ahead. Their footfalls quieted once they broke the actual tree line; the floor here was padded by layers of mossy needles and dead leaves.

Trinity eyed the canopy above them. Blue peeked through the branches. The further they traveled, the less of that clear sky would be visible.

“There should be a pretty steep drop nearby.” She recalled the planet from the bird’s eye view they’d had before landing.

The flat expanse of the plateau they’d chosen to land on was easily traversed, dips and slight hills in the bedrock, but no real challenge, the real chore lay beyond the flat expanse carved out through centuries of rain, wind, and hammering sun. Some million years ago maybe a glacier had carved out the flat area before moving along, an insignificant fact if that was the case. No glaciers had crawled across Myrkr in a long while, now it was all jungle and wilderness, and they had to pick their ways through it.

They moved beyond the flat rock face, coming to the area where the glaciers of old had dropped their larger sediment rocks. Arranged at random intervals, the boulders weren’t great obstacles to overcome, weaving around and climbing over them. It hadn’t rained in a while, the whole environment saying as much. The rocks were dry, sharp underneath his hands as he ran his hands over them, feeling the rocky texture beneath his gloves.

Soon the field of rocks was replaced by the forest that dominated most of the area where the Mandalorians appeared to have settled down. The ground was covered in dead leaves and fallen needles of the evergreen coniferous trees that surrounded them. The landscape turned green and rich where cold grey rock had been before, despite the carpet of stiff browning leaves and needles. That fresh woodsy smell that seemed to permeate every forest throughout the galaxy tickled at Isayev’s nostrils.

He pulled out the datapad to reorient them on the map, quickly stowing it away when he was done. The forest surrounding him was a far cry from the haze of pheromones his recent assignment to Zeltros had been and far more eventful than the week he’d spent on Naboo keeping an eye on some politician. He’d found out how the guy liked his coffee, but the question of if he was leaking information to the Alliance had gone unconfirmed, unless he was hiding messages on the posh paper cups he got his caf in.

“There should be a pretty steep drop nearby.”

He gave Blythe a nod, confirming her memory of the terrain she’d seen from above. The topography had indicated a steep drop, but the way around would take far longer than Isayev wanted it to. He stepped over a fallen log, proceeding slowly forward, pushing away the tree limbs that stretched out on his path, shaking loose needles and leaves from the trees he passed.

The lip of the cliff was bare, not enough earth on the edge to be able to support any proper tree growth; the grey rock had some grass growing on it, tufts waving in the wind. Isayev peered down the drop, evaluating the cliff side. It was rugged enough to be climbed down, but the steep drop on this section of the cliff was more or less asking for a slip-up, which would give them nothing but a drop and a sudden stop. A kilometre of so to the left he could see the cliff angle easing up, aided by a pile of boulders that had been deposited there by some passing glacier all those millions of years ago.

“Blythe,” he called to the pilot. “A klick to the northeast, we’ll find a way down.” He withdrew from the edge of the cliff, moving past the treeline for some cover after his brief reveal. They were not yet within the Mandalorian perimeter, but caution never killed anyone.

The forest had a strange lack of silence, different from the constant sounds of a city, far more organic, maybe more calming had Isayev not grown up with miles of ice above and below. He did find he liked the open areas better than a closed environment of Diflu and other Dolomarian cities. Less people to keep an eye on. But this wasn’t a nature walk, so all of his environmental preferences were irrelevant.

The kilometre was easy enough to cover and soon they approached the cliff edge again, this time a few less steep climb waited for them. The boulders were piled below, covered in moss and with trees pressed snugly up against them, the nature having done everything it could to cover the available ground.

He gave the clear sky a cursory glance, eyeing the clouds and blue of it, looking for any sign of an overhead vehicle, but nothing revealed itself. By the looks of the trees below, they wouldn’t see any of it after this final climb, beyond occasional holes in the canopy above.

Pulling out the grappling launcher from his utility belt, he shot the spike into the trunk of a thick tree, the claws gripping securely to the rough bark. A few strong tugs reassured him that it was solidly placed and wouldn’t budge under their weight. He pulled a few more length out of the grapple, enough to reach the bottom of the cliff side.

“Head down first,” he said, handing the pilot the spare rope of the grapple.

“Blythe. A klick to the northeast, we’ll find a way down.”

Trinity remained by the cliff’s edge for several seconds after Kuryakin had abandoned it, scouring the gray-brown surface and committing the uneven shape of the rock face to memory. She’d been both commended and chastised by her superiors for her attention to detail, for the way her eyes never seemed to be able to stay still or focused for very long. The Lorrdian had greatly ignored the latter. Very few had ever died for paying too close of attention. At this point in her career, the scrutiny had become habitual.

Not even a people as alert as the Mandalorians would have been able to spot them beyond the tree line. The branches had grown into a tangled ceiling of thick twigs and wide leaves. Twisted roots heaved out of the ground at odd angles, spattered with filmy green moss and domed mushrooms. More of the moss spanned the dark soil. It worked to soften the Confederate’s practiced footfalls. Any other noise the pair made was quickly masked by the sounds of the forest—a trilling songbird, a nearby brook, the sudden dash of something small through the undergrowth. Trinity’s ears strained to sift through the noise. Even well-concealed, she would not allow herself to be ambushed. Or her partner. She supposed he mattered, too. Sort of.

When they reached the cliff edge again, Kuryakin retrieved a grapple from his things and launched the thick hook into the nearest tree. The impact of solid metal on wood sprayed the ground with slivers of bark. Her colleague tugged at the rope. Everything secure, he handed it to Trinity with the simple instruction to “head down first.”

Trinity had always been thin. Her mother had always been convinced that an eating disorder fueled her slight frame, or that the Confederation worked every spare ounce from her build. Still, she tugged on the end of her rope to test its strength. ‘Falling to death’ had not been on her agenda this morning, and with Kuryakin’s straight-to-business policies, he probably would have abandoned her lifeless body in pursuit of the mission; however unsentimental the Lorrdian was, she did want a proper burial.

Reaching the bottom of the cliff did provide much difficulty. With her feet safely planted on the lower rock face, she waited for her partner, her eyes scanning the near forest and sky for potential threats.

Izzy knelt by the cliff’s edge, keeping both an eye on Blythe’s progress down the cliff side and the sky surrounding them. The trees were tall enough that anyone flying overhead wouldn’t easily spot them and those on the ground were unlikely to catch a glimpse of the two at all unless they were standing at the bottom of the cliff. He wasn’t quite sure why Mandalorians seemed to favour locations in forests that could be easily described as ‘the middle of nowhere’. So far, he’d yet to encounter a Mandalorian who thought a walled compound in a city was sufficient and that they didn’t need a few klicks of forest for added security. Or perhaps, as a culture, they were just more inclined to towering trees than towering skyscrapers.

When Blythe reached the bottom, Isayev lowered himself down after her, keeping a secure grip on the rope as he made his way downwards. It was easy to lower himself down, gloved hands gripping securely on the rope and the cliff side rough enough to provide plenty of footholds for his feet as he lowered himself down. He considered them lucky to not have arrived on Myrkr while it was raining, it would have made this whole business far more miserable.

His feet settled on the solid ground and he tucked the rope away behind some growth, leaving it for their return trip. They wouldn’t know how quickly they’d need to make their retreat, but it was better to be safe than sorry. Getting up would be easier than down had been, as he could merely reel them up with the grapple.

Blythe was not facing him when he came down, instead keeping a close watch on their surroundings. He gently gave her a pat on the shoulder to silently indicate that he was down and they could proceed, giving the sky and area around them some scrutiny as well, but seeing nothing. He could hear something however, the faint rumble of engines. It wasn’t certain it was coming their way, but he swiftly made his way to the nearby woods for cover, assuming Blythe would follow.

Moments later, a starfighter of some class roared over their heads, going far too quickly for Isayev to see the make of it, and for the pilot to see anything below beyond the topography of the area on his own equipment. A few fighters followed. It could be a patrol, or merely a training flight.

They were getting close, and would have to proceed with far more caution.

((Do the two Confederates manage to approach the base with no trouble? If so, what kind of security can they spot around the perimeter?))

On their approach to the base, they note the presence of electronic tripwires around the perimeter. Some are simple beams and most likely trigger a proximity alarm within the compound, but Kuryakin notes a few with a cluster of lethal explosives nestled in the undergrowth. The pair continue forward, knowing they have avoided all the lethal countermeasures, and can be somewhat positive they have not triggered any obvious non-lethal variants the Mandalorian's have secreted on their borders.

Further up, Blythe and Kuryakin come to a clearing that extends one hundred meters before them. The ground looks mulched and is little more than dirt. It is a good thing that it isn't raining as this clearing would be thick with mud. Ending the expanse of dirt is a duracrete wall of reinforced duracrete, capped with defensive turrets at evenly spaced intervals.