Chapter 8

"This," Lessa said, "is my plan for the attack."

The four teens who had come to rule the ship over the past month and a half stood around the table in the conference room. Lessa stood at one end, dressed, as she usually was at these meetings, in combat fatigues. They were new ones of somewhat her own design, a cross between the usual Rebel and Federation gear, and others were starting to copy them. If there was an official "mission" uniform this dark brown, loose but form fitting outfit was it. Some wondered why the sixteen year old kept wearing the black and red rope braid on her shoulder, a sign of rather unthinkable actions in the name of the Federation, but for her it was a continual reminder of who she had been, and who she could be again if the situation demanded it. A threat, then, as it were.

Opposite her was Don, looking intensely at the holographic map between them. His outfit, to her amusement, never changed. He wore the same battered Rebel uniform he had when she first saw him, patched and repaired as if they were still outcasts in the forests of Faranth ... with that stupid necklace. Ah, the necklace. Just once, she told herself in her more emotional moments, she wanted him to look at her and touch her the same way he did that hunk of metal. At other times she just wanted to rip the thing off his neck and toss it into the sun. He honestly didn't seem to give a fuck about anything else. Don looked up, waiting for her to go on. Lessa blushed slightly and looked back down at her notes.

Sean and Kine, standing between them on opposite sides of the table, just looked at each other and shook their heads. Both now had partners to help relieve their sexual tensions, so found the various crushes, love triangles and quadrangles amusing. So long as they didn't get in the way of what had to be done.

"Your plan?" Kine prompted, giving Lessa a sly grin. She tossed him a glance that told him to fuck off, but such threats were never taken seriously now among this group. Not that he had ever done so anyways.

"The plan," Lessa continued. She found the image she wanted and displayed a reconstruction of the slaver camp from their last, failed, mission. "The active camp is located in the forests of the continent Jahova on Baal, a good three hundred klicks from any settlements. We have no real way of reconning the place, as the Rebs do have some defenses in the area and we don't want to provoke them any more than needed, so we're going to just assume it's about the same as the first camp."

Sean raised an eyebrow at her.

"You're shitting me."

She shook her head.

"We can recon if you like, but getting someone in and out will be risky enough without having to do it twice. What good will it be to get a good look at the camp only to be unable to ever return?" Sean just shook his head at that and looked back down at the display. He hated unneeded risks. She went on.

"The raid will take two days." They all looked up, at bit shocked at that. "We will start by using all three shuttles to land three bands of troops at these three locations." She scaled the map back to show the larger area around the camp. "They will be a day's march from the camp, and with luck won't be noticed. We can come in low enough to not be seen on their scanners." Kine and Sean exchanged another glance. "The shuttles will stay on the ground while each group makes their way towards the camp. Two groups will have eight soldiers each, the third will contain me, Kine, Sean, and Irene."

"Irene?" Kine asked. "Why her?"

"She's the best we have at electronics. Gonna need her once we get to the camp if we come against certain locks, and maybe before if there are sensors in the forest but I don't think that'll be an issue."

"Really?" Sean asked. He was starting to get amused at this entire plan. Trust a woman to come up with something this silly. Lessa met his gaze.

"Yes, really. With all the animals, the amount of false alarms they'd be getting..."

"Animals?!?" Now Sean knew she wasn't serious about this, and his disbelief was clear on his face. Lessa just sighed, the sigh of one dealing with idiots you cannot, yet, have the pleasure of gutting and killing.

"Yes, animals. Are you that stupid? Baal was one of the planets with an ecosystem on it when it was colonized, and most of the life managed to survive the tweaks to the atmosphere. There are some rather large creatures in the uninhabited forests, and given that the slavers seem to be using distance as their primary defense I'm going to reasonably assume they haven't gone and put in the effort to wipe them out of the area just so they can put in some sensors that won't give off false alarms twenty times a night."

Sean did a quick search of his own on his pad, the surprise when it turned out she was right clear on his face. Never one to apologize, he just shrugged and nodded for her to continue. Lessa saw the slight smile on Don's face, and her cheeks flushed again.

"So! All three groups will make their way towards the target, stopping to rest about three klicks from the camp. My group will make the first move." She brought back the map of the camp. "About three hours after midnight, the four of us will enter the camp. If we can't ... we abort." Don looked up at her and nodded.

"You're to abort at any setback that might risk everyone. We are NOT suiciding over this." Don's gaze went from person to person, and all three nodded. "Continue."

"We THINK we know where the slaves are kept, but we're not sure, naturally. Our job will be to find them, see how many we're dealing with and their condition, then set a beacon in that building and wait. That'll be the signal for phase two." She hit some keys and the view changed. "The other two bands will have taken position on either side of camp just at the tree line. Once the beacon is on, the three shuttles will launch and come in for a low level bombing attack that hits every building and defensive structure EXCEPT the one we're in. We hope." She grinned at that, and both Kine and Sean joined her. They had all been on the receiving end of friendly fire before.

"So. Once the bombing starts our troops will also fire from the woods, sowing as much confusion as possible. Let them think this is a huge attack. After two bombing runs, one of us will toss another beacon in a clear space next to the building we're in and one of the empty shuttles will land and we'll get as many of the slaves on board as possible. If they won't all fit ... either I'll call in another shuttle, if we think the defenses are down enough, or we'll make our way into the woods with them and get picked up later. Either way we'll signal a withdrawal and everyone pulls back to the original landing zones for a pickup."

She stopped, and looked over at Don. He was going over it in his mind, and she bit her lower lip hoping he approved. She had worked hard on this, trying to find something that had a chance with their limited information and resources. She wasn't a planner, though. At least, she did her best work when bullets were whizzing by her head and death was grinning from his perch on a nearby rock.

"What if we don't need the attack?"

Lessa looked startled.

"What?"

"What if," Don said, "you four manage to literally walk into the camp and think you can walk out with everyone without a shot being fired. I mean," he gestured at the map, "you're assuming you can just waltz in anyway. If there's only a couple guards and you've taken them out silently enough..."

Kine nodded.

"We should be ready for that possibility. It could be that easy ... afterwards we'll still hit and level the camp, naturally."

"Naturally," said Don. "And given we don't know the numbers we're dealing with, maybe have an option for two shuttles to land in the first place for the rescued prisoners?" He looked over at Lessa. "This is a good start. Now we just have to refine it a bit."

As they tore her plan apart over the next hour, "refine" was not the word her increasingly battered ego wanted to use.

Ger was in the shuttle bay.

He was always in the shuttle bay. There were times he was tempted to just drag a cot down there, but it wasn't like he couldn't get to his cabin in just a couple minutes so he figured in the end it would just be considered him making a statement. Him showing off his dedication to his job. And ... they'd be right.

Wiping his hands on his shirt, Ger looked at the disassembled thruster pod on front of him. The fact that it didn't look much different than any of the machines and engines he had worked on back home continued to amaze him. He was working on a space ship, for goodness sake! There should be some difference between it and a truck, apart from the size and complexity of the parts! But his hands were just as greasy, his muscles just as strained. And his anxiety just as high.

Lives depended on him.

They had three shuttles, none of them new. For the past month they had been in constant use, often going in and out of atmospheres. Yes, they had been built for this, but they had also been built to have a large support crew working on them between missions. That it was just Ger and three others, with help from those assigned to engineering when there was time and need ... he shook his head. There he went again, feeling pity for himself. As if others weren't working themselves to death as well to get things ready.

And, really, it wasn't that bad. They kept one shuttle out of service at a time, rotating them in and out to keep the work load reasonable. Only having to get all three in top shape in three days was keeping him up nights. And days. Maybe he should bring that cot down...

"Ger?"

He swung his head to see the source of the female voice.

It was Mel.

Ger started to scramble to his feet, but the tall teen motioned him to stay seated, giving him a sad smile. She pulled up a box, sitting with a slow grace. She was wearing a thin dark red dress, and Ger once again realized how pretty the small breasted woman could be when she put her mind to it. Her long limbs were tanned and strong, her face a bit more angular than he liked, but still pretty when she wasn't shouting insults at him. Only the stupid way she kept her hair ... it was then it struck him.

She was bald.

Noticing his reaction, Mel, nodded in acknowledgment.

"It's ... well, it's hard to say it's a tradition when I'm the only one to do it and it's only the second time." She gave another sad smile. "I didn't have a real family when I grew up in the streets of NuHavon. I did, however, have two friends who were closer to me than brothers: Ken ... and Cris. When Cris died in the siege ... I cut off half my hair as I had lost half of my world. Now that Ken is gone..." She reached up and ran her right hand over her shaved head. "Everyone probably just thought I was crazy."