Project Boussh: Tick, Tock
by Majick

    Aboard the Super Transport Mark VI, Elassar kept a vague eye on the
bacta tank as it slowly drained its contents back into the storage
containers. It was far more interesting to wade through the medical reports
of the Boussher's, both Terran and New Republic. With their consent, he had
activated the medical scanner he carried with him, and left it on passive
scan throughout the party.
    "Hmm... traces of Tannabian Flu... Chronological age... approximately 32
years old... must be Major Janson..."

    In Washington, an Imperial slicer completed the decryption of the
datapads that DC3 team had carried with them. Almost every one of the 18
pads had been damaged, but with sufficient work by the computer team, it was
possible they could do something. Maybe work out what had happened to the
team that had been sent out to capture the target.

    "Ouch... lot's of old bumps and bruises, scars and breaks... hmm... 26
year old female..." He grinned, wickedly, "...Shalla."

    The corrupted data was passed to the small team of slicers that the
Embassy rated. The pasty faced trio eagerly grabbed at the datapad, and each
plugged their personally modified pads into the secure model, and began to
attack the damaged encrypts.

    "Hey... What's this?"
    Elassar looked at the newest set of information as it scrolled across
the pad. Though garbled by nearby computer and astromech activity, the data
received clearly indicated a foreign object in the body of the young Terran
male.
    Young Terran male.
    Computers.
    Astromechs.
    Elassar called up the medscans taken while they flew westwards over the
Pacific Ocean.

    Partial data began to scroll over the datapads of the Imperial
commanders. Captain Namor and Major Eripme stared wordlessly at the snatches
of data and images that represented the last moments of eighteen of their
men. One of the slicers glanced at the officers, as though expecting praise.
One look from Eripme sent him back to his pad.

    Elassar bolted through the door of the cabin, sending Tycho sprawling
from where he had been walking out the door. The Devaronian looked around
the cabin desperately. Spotting Wedge, he beckoned the Corellian towards
him.
    "Report, Lieutenant," Wedge said.
    "Sir, I need you, Sci, Mike and...uh... Ooryl, I guess, out in the
transport."
    Wedge looked at the young Devaronian, gauged his seriousness, and
nodded.

    Captain Namor and Major Eripme stalked back and forth across the floor
of the small command centre. With T'Cab dead, and little information
originating from Mendellia, this could be their best bet to get a line on
their enemies. They had apparently severely underestimated their enemy, and
had no intention of doing so again. Once they were more aware of their
enemy's abilities, they could reactivate the homing beacon.

    "I should have realised before," Elassar said, as the scanner chittered
away over Mike's chest. "The convulsion in the hotel room, it was a homing
beacon activating."
    "Is it still active?" Sci asked, nervously. Their safe house suddenly
felt very vulnerable, isolated as it was.
    "Well.... dormant. They send out a short pulse when activated, which
also plays havoc with the host's central nervous system," Elassar replied.
    "That tends to knock the person out, letting the recovery team find them
easily," Wedge commented. "I remember they were outlawed on Corellia when I
was just entering the Rebellion, and crime rates rose. But they were killing
too many people, they had to be outlawed."
    "So how did Mike survive?" Sci asked.
    "I'm half Irish, it takes more than a neural EMP to take me out," Mike
replied.
    Elassar grinned, and commented, "He was already unconscious, and all it
did was spasm his neural pathways a little. When I pumped him full of
adrenaline, he shook off every thing, for a little while.
    "But it did some bad damage, which explains why he needed to spend so
long in bacta. I didn't even think. Now I am. We need to remove the device."
    "That's where Ooryl comes in?" the Gand asked.
    "Exactly. As the Rogue's medic, and you have experience of injured
Terrans, I need your help."
    "Of course. Anything."
    "And us?" Wedge asked.
    "I need you to go in and scan everyone else for those things, especially
anyone who's had any Imperial contact, or used Imperial equipment."
    "Without scaring anyone?" Sci wanted to know.
    "Without scaring anyone," Wedge confirmed, as he picked up a scanner.

    Eripme threw a baleful glare at the trio of slicers. Even as he watched,
one of them wandered over to the small fridge, and withdrew a can of coke.
Popping the top, he guzzled some of the drink, before belching, and looking
back at the two officers. Only then did he saunter back to the table, and
resume his work.

    Mike watched dreamily as the two aliens scrubbed up for the surgery
which, if successful, could save the lives of some fourty people. He giggled
slightly, and felt the darkness descend on him again.
   His last thought was how often he's passed out in the course of the
mission.

    Wedge and Sci discussed how to carry out their task. Sci was in favour
of being subtle, sneaking the scanners around in their pockets, while Wedge
felt checking everyone openly was the best way to get a full set of
readings, at the risk of causing some minor panic.
    "After all," Wedge reasoned, "they're all grown men and women."
    "Some of them are just kids," Sci countered. "We have no way of knowing
how they'll react to the possibility of having a foreign object stuck in
their body. It would surely be best not to tell them in front of everyone."

    Eripme and Namor were discussing the slicers.
    "I say we need to 'motivate' them," Eripme suggested, with a snarl.
    "Sir, they're all we have. Any form of coercion on our part might turn
them against us, or at least make them sloppy. Unfortunately, we're stuck
with them."
    "You're right, of course, Captain," Eripme brought himself back under
control. A junior officer nearby visibly relaxed at the sight. "I just want
to know what happened to my men. And then avenge their loss."
    "As do I, sir. Sadly, these slicers are perhaps the best chance we have.
I realise it is frustrating, sir, and yet it is the same loyalty we show the
DC3 team that we must show those less... military... in their military
service. They *are* good at what they do, sir."
    "Once upon a time, the Empire had people who could do what they did, and
still be able to maintain military discipline."
    "Yes sir," Namor replied.
    The two officers shared a moment of reminiscence for the past glories of
their careers.

    Elassar sweated as the overhead light cast deep shadows over the
incision in Mike's abdomen. He activated the lamp he had attached to the
scalpel he was using. The gloom vanished, and he probed gently for the alien
feel of the ferroceramic device that the scans told him was deep inside
Mikes body.
    Ooryl held the incision open, and used a steady stream of wipes to keep
Elassar's brow as clear as possible.

    Wedge and Sci eventually decided to go with Sci's plan. Both turned
their scanners up to full gain, and tucked them inside their clothes. They
walked back into the cabin, hoping no-one would question their absence. They
settled down near the centre of the room, allowing the scanners the best
chance to calculate whether any more of their teammates were walking
Imperial timebombs.
    Meanwhile, in the corner, Whistler extended an antenna, and began
scanning for the transmission source he was suddenly detecting.

    "Namor, we're nearly finished the decryption," one of the slicers cried
out in a singsong voice. The junior officer turned his head from his
workstation to see which one of the slicers was about to die.
    Namor gritted his teeth, but choked down the remark that leapt to his
mouth.
    "Please finish as fast as possible, Ensign. We really do need that
data."
    "Yeah, sure, I told you, we're working on it."
    Eripme, walking back into the room from the refresher, caught the tail
end of the exchange, and clasped the hand rail surrounding the command pit
with both hands, slightly denting the steel rail.

    Whistler erupted into a barrage of beeping, catching everyone's
attention. Shalla walked over to him, and read the words the astromech was
putting on the laptop he was connected to.
    "He says that there is an Imperial scan going on in this room," she
said. She looked around. "He's pinpointed you four as the source," she
added, pointing at Wedge, Sci, Emily and Alison.
    Sci stood up. "This isn't what it looks like..."
    "Why don't you tell us what it is, then," a harsh mechanical voice
commented.
    Sci turned to look at Piggy, who was standing a bare six inches from the
young Terran. He recoiled slightly, and Wedge stepped between the two.
    "Piggy, stand down," he ordered.
    "Everyone, the scanning is coming from myself and Sci," he said with a
look at Sci. Sci nodded in return, and Wedge continued. "We're conducting a
medical scan, because one of the Boussh group has been infected with a
homing beacon. Myself and Sci decided a private group scan was best, rather
than going public in front of everyone."
    "So, what's the results?" Shalla asked, looking around the room.
    "And who's carrying the beacon at the moment?" asked Bror.

    "Major, we've finished those decrypts," said a member of the slicer
trio.
    "About time," snarled Eripme. He keyed the receive button on his datapad
and watched the sequence of events unfold from the soldiers entering the
lobby of the cheap hotel, to the decloaking of the Super Transport class
ship and its destruction of the stormtrooper transport.
    "A Jedi," Namor mused. "That would explain their escapes from here and
the hotel."

    Corran stepped forward, a sense of calm radiating outwards from him,
helping sooth the jagged nerves.
    "Sci and Wedge are our commanders, and deserve our trust. Let them tell
us what is going on."
    "Thank you, Commander," Sci said, letting out a breath.
    "During his captivity," Wedge began, "Mike was infected with an Imperial
homing device. Elassar and Ooryl are operating on him now, trying to remove
it."
    Sci picked up the baton. "We felt it was easiest to scan the rest of you
without your prior knowledge, to help negate any panic caused by the
possibility of any us being unwitting Imperial agent's."
    Josh and Nick shared a glance.
    "Now, however," Wedge continued, "it appears we would be best served by
conducting the scanning openly."
    He looked at the scanners he and Sci held.
    "The following among you are already cleared," he announced. "Corran,
Josh, Bror, Vickie, Alison and Emily."
    "Corran, you might be best served in the operating room with Mike, in
case something goes wrong."
    The Jedi nodded, and moved out of the cabin towards the ship.
    "The rest of you," Sci added, "out to the ships, and cover them over as
best as you are able. Just in case the Imps do a fly by."

    Corran entered the antiseptic smelling operating theatre as Elassar
uttered a bark.
    "I have it. It's a small device, big red light, about a decicred in
size... but... Oh no..."
    "What is it?" asked Ooryl.
    "It has some sort of tail, its wrapped around Mike's spine. If we damage
it, it may fry Mike's neural pathways."
    "I can help with that," Corran said, stepping up to the head of the
operating table. "These things use the hosts senses to an extent, am I
right?"
    "You are, Corran. You may be able to use your sense altering abilities
to fool the device."
    They looked at Elassar, who shrugged. "It can't hurt."

    "Jedi are notoriously tricky, and this one has some powerful friends,"
Eripme commented. The stormtroopers stood in front of him, impassively.
Beneath the Embassy, Captain Namor prepped the cloaked shuttle for the
mission. The slicers, meanwhile, were working on re-establishing contact
with the homing device.

    "Now, Corran, begin the scatter."
    Corran focused on Mike, and infused the young man's unconscious
perceptions of his surroundings with a liberal dose of unreality. They hoped
the effect would serve to confuse the homing device, at least enough that
the Imps wouldn't be able to get a clean lock on the device.

    "Activate," the Lieutenant ordered, as the slicers finally made contact
with the beacon.

    Mike tensed as the beacon pulsed out its startup neural pulse. Elassar
cursed as his patient jerked in his restraints. Corran's forehead broke out
in sweat as the feedback from the pulse coursed through him. He struggled to
maintain the scatter effect.
    Meanwhile, Ooryl turned up the flow of the morphine drip slightly.

    "Sir, the beacon is being jammed somehow," the Lieutenant reported over
the comlink to Eripme. The Major let out a weary sigh.
    "Of course it is, Lieutenant. Do we know anything about it's
position?"
    "Somewhere north east of here, sir, probably on the continental United
States."

    In the New Hampshire winter, the Boussher's struggled to camouflage the
multitude of ships. Hastily cut branches were flung over the ships.
Gradually, reinforcements were sent out into the cold as Wedge and Sci
cleared them.

    The shuttle was full to capacity. Along with Major Eripme, Captain
Namor, and five stormtrooper squads was a very special cargo. Fifty
ysalamari, creating a Force blind sphere a kilometre across.

    Corran sat behind Mike as Elasar and Ooryl tweezered at the
dormant-again beacon's tail. He focussed more on slowing Mike's heart, to
ease the bleeding from the incision on his abdomen. However, he still sent
false data along the pathways, and part of Mike was resisting, or at least
sending memories back. He shivered as another person's mind met his own.

    The shuttle lifted from on top of the Embassy, cloak engaged. The
stromtroopers endured the cramped conditions wthout comment, already
foccused on their mission. Perhaps they thought of the battle in Australia
days before, when a Jedi was reported to have slain an entire stormtrooper
base.
    In the cockpit, Eripme and Namor tried to narrow the containment on the
signal they had received from the beacon. Unnoticing, they crossed the New
Hampshire border.

    Finally the scanning was complete, and Wedge, Tycho, Dia and Sci left
the cabin to assist. Vickie, with her leg still recovering, stayed behind.

    In the Super Mark VI, Elassar teased the last segment of the beacon's
tail from around Mike's spine. Corran redoubled his scatter effect.

    In the shuttle, the ysalamari sent out their Force blinding sphere.

    The Boussher's slumped back into the cabin, exhausted at the effort
they'd put into their work.

    The shuttle flew inexorbaly onwards.

    Corran slumped suddenly to one side, with a cry. Ooryl dropped to the
floor to help his wingman, leaving Elassar to make the final detachment of
the beacon.

    In the cabin, Vickie screamed as the sphere hit her as well.

    Eripme looked at Namor.
    "Prepare the beacon for another transmission."
    Namor busyed himself with the beacon startup sequence.

    Elassar held his breath as he made the final cut, slicing lightly into
Mike's vertebrae for the final time.

    "Activate."
    Namor flicked the switch.

    Elassar pulled the beacon free, and the red light died.

    "Activate, Captain," said Eripme, again.
    "Sir, the beacon is.... gone, sir."
    Eripme sighed wearily, and keyed in a course change, to return to
Washington, and prepare his report for the Grand Admiral.

    ***************

    In the cabin, Vickie and Corran meditated, clearing their minds of the
last effects of the sudden, and unwanted force blindness.

    Elassar scanned the records of his patients, very eager to avoid another
procedure like the one he'd just undergone.

    The Imperial force, having surgically removed all traces of their
presence from the Mendellian embassy, boarded the shuttles for their return
flight to the Admonitor.

    Mike bobbed, again, in bacta. In his dreams, he chased Zekka Thyne
through a Corellian back alley.