For once, everything has gone without a hitch, thought Sci as the Gaia lifted off from the roof of the Mendellian Mission. As there was no traffic in orbit of note--though Sci did check to see that the replacement Hubble Space Telescope was in place--clearing Terra's gravity field was a matter of minutes.
Although he had an astromech onboard, Sci had a route programmed into the Gaia's memory for trips to and from Coruscant. As such, Nat still had her voice active. As Sci swung into position for the jump to hyperspace, she spoke up.
"Sci, abort the countdown. A message is coming in."
"Sure," said Sci, as he aborted the powering-up hyperdrive.
"Coming in from SACUL. Live."
"I'll take it," said Sci, sighing.
The vidscreen popped to life to show a nondescript man, an agent of SACUL. He began without preamble. "Major, I'm here to report that a call for Damage Recovery was made from Terra Ten earlier today. The call reported Trace, Spielberg, Blasted. A 51 was requested at Lieutenant Corletti's location."
"And?"
"The Trace was easy enough--there were some traces, apparently from an ion cannon, on the road nearby. The Spielberg was irrelevant, as all the people who were involved are dead--killed in the van that, in going over a cliff, resulted in the Blasted. Apparently a prisoner transport, and everything has been squared away with the French government. Lieutenant Corletti had, it seems, been arrested on weapons charges, but the charge became espionage when he couldn't prove his entry into the country. He arranged a diversion and escape with the help of his B-Wing and that personal droid of his, but something went wrong. We've put in a body to act as the Lieutenant's. The Lieutenant was returning to Paris at time of last contact."
Sci blinked. "All right. I'll have a talk with the Lieutenant, and everything will be in the postmission report. Anything else?"
"Merely a reiteration of our warnings, Major. Shape up. Now." He signed off. Sci sighed.
"Nat, send a copy of that conversation to the Paris team. Mark it with a message: 'Terra Ten located.' Let's get the hell out of this system." He pulled back on the hyperdrive levers.