Project Boussh: Glimmerings
by Nick Coghlan

Nick meandered vaguely through the piles of junk in Josh's room, tapping
his finger against his teeth. His mind was miles away, pondering the
significance of Brad's absence.

Finally, he reached the corner where Piggy was holed up, trying to
pierce the mysteries of Bill Skywalker and ImpStar1138. The only Bill
Skywalker to show up on ICQ's public records was a 15 year old kid in
Melbourne and ImpStar1138 didn't show up at all. That was hardly
surprising though - changing an ICQ nickname was a matter of five
seconds work. Piggy had browsed through the private logs on the main
server as well - there were no records of any other entries ever
occuring under either of those names. And the Melbourne kid was squeaky
clean - not even Imperial security could have protected that kid from
the grinder Piggy ran his online history through. Imperial Center's
records were clean as well - no sign of a Bill Skywalker anywhere in the
archives. Having exhausted these simple means of investigation, Piggy
had turned to some of the more esoteric capabilities of his NRI
intelligence gear. So far, he hadn't really gotten anywhere...

"Piggy, did you track where Brad's fighter went this morning?"

The Gamorrean looked up from the screen where he was mentally checking
some of the computer's probability assessments. The translator didn't
have much luck with his initial grunt of acknowledgement "Hrrg, yes. He
headed west, bearing 257."

"Hmmm. Did you pick up any other contacts in that direction?"

"No. The range makes it difficult to detect things out west. Reflections
off the ionosphere give us some idea, but that's only good enough for
picking out Terran aircraft. The ECM on the starfighters means we're as
blind to them as your conventional radar."

"What if I told you Josh and Ooryl reported a meeting between a B-wing
and an unidentified A-wing out on the Nullarbor? With time and departure
bearing consistent if Brad was in the B-wing."

Piggy settled back in his chair, obviously puzzled. "An unidentified
A-wing... no-one involved in Project Boushh was scheduled to use an
A-wing. The A-wing, though, is still almost exclusively a New Republic
craft. But why would a New Republic agent come here without informing
us? It was decided that matters would run more smoothly on this mission
with a coordinated approach. Unless, of course, General Cracken is
playing games..."

Coming to a decision, he leaned forward and opened a panel on the side
of his console, pulling out a small holdout blaster. Tossing it to Nick,
he said "Take this. When Brad gets back, it will be time for a ...
discussion."

Flicking the setting to stun, Nick raised a quizzical eyebrow. Piggy
continued, "Brad seems to playing a game of his own. Maybe it's
perfectly innocent - but maybe it isn't. If he comes back and stays of
his own accord, fine. If he doesn't come back, or if he tries to leave
again ..."