Project Boushh: Yoghurt Low, or Ginseng Blades Have Nothing On Lightsabers
by Majick

    Bror, Shalla and Elassar hauled their unconscious colleague from the
Embassy, and quickly dived into an alleyway, away from the curious eyes of
the mid afternoon DC shoppers. They slid gracelessly into the shadows, and
lowered their unconscious teammate to the floor. Bror kicked his freshly
healed leg outwards a couple of times, before sighing.
    "There are still a couple of kinks... Well, what do we do with Mike?"
    "I can bring him out of unconsciousness, but really, it's the best
place for him," Elassar commented. As ever, when the young Devaronian spoke
of medicine, his voice was clinical, professional.
    "I still can't believe he shot her," Shalla whispered. She'd had to kill
before, as had Elassar and Bror, but they had been trained for the moment.
Mike had had no such training.
    "We cannot afford to worry about that now. We have to work out how to
get away from here. I suspect DC as an intelligence resouce is now closed to
us. Where else may our skills be of value?"
    Shalla cast her mind back to the intel messages Mike and herself had
read the night before.
    "Mendellia, possibly, or stopping off to join up with another group.
There has been talk of all the groups joining, for one big briefing with
Sci, before striking at Mendellia. I imagine this will be at a safehouse of
some description."
    "We need to send a message to them, saying they must wait for us to join
them. Perhaps they will be able to help us with Mike," Bror said. He looked
at his teammates. They nodded, glumly.
    "Listen to me... We have all been on failed missions, and I am aware
that this currently seems like one. However, I think if we dig deeper, we
shall see that it is not. Rather, we have earned vital information, even
though it has caused us great personal trouble."
    "That's putting it mildly," Elassar snorted.
    Shalla knelt by the unconscious fourth member of the team.
    "What do we do with Mike?" she asked. "We can't leave him, or take him
with us..." It was an unspoken assertion that she would not leave him, even
if her orders were to do so.
    "I feel it may be best if we find somewhere that one of us can watch
him, while the other two make their way to Chesapeake and come back with our
ships. With Koyi and the transport, we can make our way to the other teams,
providing we can find out exactly where they will be."
    "So, who goes, who stays?" Elassar asked.
    "I... Shalla, you are our Intelligence expert, and know most about the
local area. However, Mike may be dangerous when he awakes. Which do you feel
would be the beter use of your abilities?"
    "I think you and I should go and retrieve the ships, Bror, while Elassar
tends to Mike. A trained medic can care for him, and take care of him should
he be... difficult... upon awakening."
    "Then that is how we shall work. Elassar, how are your medical
supplies?"
    "Less than minimal. My personal packet is about done. I'll need to get
some supplies, although I have a spare stash on board the transport. Bring
that back and I'm back in business, 'Doogie Targon, MD,'" he added, with a
smile.
    The other officers looked at him, blankly.
    "I'm the only one who saw the hotel flatscreen as a means of information
gathering, then?"

    Bror and Shalla sat on the train from Washington to Chesapeake Bay.
Though their seats were opposite one another, neither of the two looked at
the other. Shalla stared out of the window, Bror along the aisle. An
uncomfortabel, heavy silence hung between them. Eventually, Bror spoke.
    "He will be fine. Truly."
    "We can't know that, Bror. He's never had anything like this happen to
him before. He's..." She looked around, and lowered her voice. "He's killed
another person. That doesn't just go away."
    He regarded her, cooly. Eventually, he said "It was self defence, and
more to the point, he really wasn't in his right mind. That cold hearted
daughter of the Sith had him tortured for the Force only knows how many
hours, and that had to have an effect on him."
    "And if it still has an effect on him when he awakens? What then?"
    "Then we pray Elassar managed to get some anasthetic before he ran out
of money."

    In the grotty hotel room they'd rented, Elassar sat watching both Mike,
and a 'Seinfeld' rerun on the rooms cable system. As Mike groaned, Elassar
moved to stand over him. Mike's hand snapped out, trapping Elassar's wrist
in a hard, painful grip. Elassar looked down at his patient, to see Mike's
eyes wide open, unseeing, and a grimace of pure agony on his face. His
breath came in short, fast gasps. As suddenly as it came, the moment passed.
Mike's expression faded, his hand went limp, again, and his eyes closed. His
breathing immediately slowed to normal. Elassar shook his head, not knowing
what exactly was wrong with his charge.

    In the Embassy, a technician looked at the monitor, and called his
superior over. "The tracking device in subject DC3 is active, sir," he said.
    The officer nodded. "Keep me informed," he ordered. To another
technician, he said; "Prepare the 'welcome wagon'." He smiled, self
satisfiedly.

    It was dusk, and Shalla and Bror were ready to summon Koyi and the
transport from under the water of Chesapeake Bay. Bror tuned his comlink to
a specific frequency, then spoke into it.
    "Open Sesame," he said.
    There was a click on the comlink, and a few minutes later, the transport
ship pulled free of the waters, its grey hull near indistinguishable against
the night sky, especially with all its running lights turned off. On
repulsorlifts, it slid gently to where the two officers stood, and a
personnel tractor beam pulled them into the ship. Once aboard, the two
headed forward to find Koyi Komad staring at them. She acknowledged their
presence with a cool nod.
    "Where to, then..? And where's the others? Did you end up spacing the
kid?"
    "Elassar? No," said Shalla. "He's caring for our contact, who got
injured. We need to evac them and meet up with the rest of the groups."
    "How are the fighters?" Bror wanted to know.
    "In fine shape. Having Zraii and Cubber Daine with me has been a lot of
fun."
    "How much did you take Cubber for?" Bror asked.
    "A hundred creds," Koyi replied with a grin. "By the way, we've ginned
up a cloak for the transport, while we were waiting for you. it hasn't been
tested yet, but I thought you might like it if we have to go urban at any
point."

    Outside Mike and Elassar's hotel, a stormtrooper squad, in dyed blue
scout uniform, prepared to recapture subject DC3. The first member of the
nine man squad walked in, and scythed the lobby with blaster bolts, stunning
the small cluster of people unfortunate enough to be there.

    Elassar's sensitive ears perked at the sound of the blaster fire. He
dived behind Mike's bed, and snapped off the television as well. He pulled
Mike's limp body down beside him, and, with a short Devaronian curse, pumped
his last syringefull of adrenaline into the battered Terran.
    "Desperate times..." he murmured.
    Mike's eyes slowly flickered open. Elassar pressed a blaster into his
hands, and quickly explained the situation, as he knew it. He took a quick
look out the window, but the dusk prevented even his sharp eyes from seeing
too much of what was happening. A faint 'thump' from the other side of the
door spun him around again.
    "Old habits die hard," he whispered to Mike. "That'll be a thermal
charge, to take out the door."
    "Then we open fire, yeah?" Mike asked, still drowsy.
    "Yeah, but you and me are going to have to have a long talk about you
and blasters. And aim for the centre of the bod this time, huh?"
    Mike's face paled, and he looked as though he were about to collapse
again.
    "Mike, please, lose it later, OK? Right now, painful though it is for me
to say it, even I can't take a squad of stormies all on my own. I need you
to help."
    Mike swallowed, grimaced, looked at the door, his blaster, Elassar, and
came to a decision.
    "OK, but my way, yeah?"
    Elassar nodded, not knowing what that meant, but accepting any help he
would get.
    Mike stood up, looked around the room, and walked over to where Elassar
had left the lightsabre. He picked it up, and walked over to the door,
pointing the projecting end across the door at neck height. He looked away
from the door, and held the blaster up to shield his face.
    Finally the charge went off, and the lock fired across the room. The
door was kicked open, and two stormtroopers tried to hurry into the room.
Instead, they ran into the blade of the lightsabre, which Mike had triggered
as the door hit the wall. Both troopers were beheaded, and Elassar's first
shot took the third in the stomach; he collapsed, and the three bodies
slowed the entrance of any more of the squad.
    Mike pushed off the wall, turning as he fell, and firing a string of
shots at the doorway. Between him and Elassar, another two stormies fell,
leaving the NRI team outnumbered by only two to one. Mike sighed, and threw
the still lit lightsabre at the thin wall beside the door. It penetrated,
and its progress slowed fractionally as it stabbed through the armour and
body of another trooper. Mike shuddered as he heard the trooper scream in
agony.
    He climbed to his feet again, and circled around to a point where he
could see into the corridor from one side of the door. He grasped the light-
sabre handle, and yanked it towards him, pulling the blade across a metre
of wall. He was rewarded with another scream, as the blade dug into another
trooper. He pulled the blade clear, and motioned for Elassar to look along
the other side of the corridor. Both of the agents looked out, but the
corridor was clear of threats.
    "Where now?" Mike asked.
    "The roof. If things are going according to plan, Shalla and Bror should
be back with the transport any time now."
    "Good." Mike looked down at the bodies by his feet, and shuddered. From
a simple student, to an Intel agent who now had nearly a half dozen kills to
his name. Things were going way too fast for him to take it all in.
    Also, the image of T'Cab dying played over, and over in his mind. He
began to shake, uncontrollably, and felt the blackness descend again.
    Elassar heard the thump, and looked around. He sighed. The adrenaline had
worn off again, and Mike had succumbed to the ravages of the stressful
period he'd recently endured. Elassar grabbed the young Terran under his
arms, not forgetting to attach the lightsabre to his belt, and began pulling
his teammate towards the roof.

    Up on the roof, Elassar discovered where the other stormtroopers were.
Eleven of them were gathered around a repulsorlift transport, mocked up to
look like a flatbed truck. Elassar could see their movements were agitated,
and guessed they'd tried to establish contact with the seven men they'd sent
in. Then, Shalla's comlink buzzed.
    "Majick three, come in please."
    "Reading you, two, come here NOW!!" he hissed.
    "On way, arrival in two minutes. Anything you want done?"
    "You could take out the stormies and their little transport if you want,
they're parked out under the streetlamp on the North side of the building."
    "Their arrogance offends you, three?"
    "That's an affirmative, one."

    The transport decloaked over the troop craft, and a single blast from
the bow laser cannons ignited the fuel cells, wiping out the vessel and its
occupants. Elassar and the unconscious Mike were brought on board the ship,
and Elassar and Bror took their teammate to the small medbay.
    When they returned, Shalla had hacked into Mike's email account, and was
preparing a project wide email, asking for help.

    To: Boussh Group
    From: Majick & Co
    Subject: Help wanted

    Have been forced to evacuate DC, now looking for safe haven to rest and
repair our team. Slicers requested to alter information on death of
Mendellian Ambassador T'Cab so as suspects look nothing like us. Any and all
help needed. On the plus side, we have the mechanics with us.

    Shalla looked at Bror, and he nodded, curtly. Shalla hit the send
button, and their team's fate was in the hands of the others.