Stardate 92218.7
Romulan Star Empire, Colony of Leda Prime
Zala leaned back and watched into the blue, cloudless sky while basking in the warmth of the sun. Three weeks ago a romulan republic runabout dropped her and her team off in the jungles of the southern continent; there they linked up with one of the rebel cells that formed themselves over the last few months with the support of Republic and Starfleet intelligence.
In their hidden camps her team teached these colonists how to handle and maintain firearms, how to utilize cover and the most important of all, finally established a chain of command among them.
Zala shook her head and reached up to scratch her itching ear only to stop and frown as her fingers hit the oddly shaped pointy implants. Of course command neglected to inform her that surgical alterations would be necessary for this ops. She hoped the medical officers back at home could revert the changes again; she didn’t want to spend the rest of her life with the face of a romulan.
The scenery in front of her was beautiful, the air full of the smell of the flowers in full bloom. A small park, other people of her rebel cell around like her attempting to pose as office workers who decided to take their lunch break outside in the nice weather or as simple passerby’s who sat down for a moment. “Right, lunch”, she glanced to her side to ensure her lunchbox which did not held a nutritious meal as one would expect was still there.
Sitting next to her Illidar, the rebel leader of the group, touched her arm and nodded forward at the two bored looking Uhlan guarding the entrance to a building. She nodded back, it was almost time. Both of them grabbed their belongings and attempted to look as inconspicuous as possibly while they slowly walked down the street towards the building.
Zala recalled the details of the plan. At exactly 1200 hours another cell would create a diversion at the spaceport on the other side of the city. When the imperial star navy did not change its standing operational orders they would be sending reinforcements, giving her group a time window of five minutes and forty seconds to act.
At 1201 hours beta team would breach the building on the southern side while her team, alpha, would go through the main entrance. Her mission target was down the first hallway to the left after the third door, the primary control room for the planetary short range communication system. They would enter a viral matrix into it to cause havoc and have it send out rebel propaganda instead of the imperial one. Meanwhile beta team would clear out and secure the exit route.
They came closer to the entrance, the guards clearly looking bored out of their mind. Both just had a long shift after them and waited for their relief detail to finally arrive, only that they would be diverted to deal with a sudden rebel raid on the spaceport.
Then it happened, an explosion could be heard and in the distance a cloud of smoke slowly rose into the sky. Zala opened her lunchbox and grabbed the plasma pistol it concealed. Like Illidar she took aim at one of the surprised guards and shot from point blank range, both falling to the ground without uttering a sound.
Illidar raised his pistol to the air and yelled out: “FOR THE REPUBLIC!”. Zala grimaced, she would need to have a talk with him afterwards, he may be a good leader but he still needed to learn about battlefield discipline. During a mission you should remain silent, only talk when it is necessary and not shout and curse like a klingon warrior who cut off his own foot.
As the two of them waved through the remaining members of alpha, another explosion rocked the building. Beta team was behind schedule, they should have had already breached the walls. “To late.” Thought Zala to herself, thats what you get from colonists leading a guerrilla war against an oppressing regime and not a group of battle hardened MACO’s.
It took them two minutes and thirty seconds to reach the comms room. Thirty seconds more to breach its door, and finally twenty seconds in the intense fire fight that was needed to clear it out of hostile opposition.
After the last imperial soldier fell to the ground, he hid behind his desk while the others were standing exposed in the open, Llair stepped forward, she used to be a systems engineer of the imperial star navy sometimes during the dominion war, it was her job to hack the consoles and leave their package. Zala looked around, so far no losses among her team. Illidar ordered a few of them to guard the door while he walked up to her. Zala gave him an encouraging grin; so far he did a good job. Before the mission she had taken him aside and quietly told him that this is his ops. She was not here to fight this war for him, only to teach him and his compatriots how to effectively lead it themselves.
Four minutes ten seconds, time to leave. If they would stay any longer they would get swarmed with hostiles. Llair held up a thumb, she was done. Together they moved out of the room and headed down the hallway, beta team should be waiting for them after the next intersection.
While jogging around a corner suddenly a centurion bumped into zala, the heavier man falling on top of her causing her to wheeze as the impact pressed the air out of her lungs.
A fire fight broke out around them as the centurion’s team passed around the corner as well and trained their weapons on the intruders.
The man regained his posture back faster than zala and put his hands on around her neck to choke her to death. As quickly as she could she took the man by his shoulders and rammed her knee into his groin. The man gave a pained cry from him and his grip loosened around her. Not waiting until he would get up she ended their fight with a punch to his chin. Unconscious he fell to the side.
Zala rubbed her neck and looked around, the imperial team was dead on the ground and the rebels were guarding the hallways. In a corner she saw Illidar leaning over Llair’s body lying on the ground. He shook his head at her. Dead.
With a solemn expression Illidar picked up Llair’s lifeless body and threw her over his shoulders. They would not leave one of them behind. At least in that they did not differ from the MACO’s.
The rest of their trip was went without any interruptions, beta was already awaiting them. Later Zala would find out that they were delayed because they had to scare off a few civilians so they would not get caught in the crossfire.
Their escape vehicles already waited for them, literally. Hlai’s, the rebels used the large flightless birds to get around on the ground since sensor scans would not be able to differ between the bigger biosign of the animal and that of its rider.
As they climbed into the saddles of their mounts the teams could hear the telltale sound of a romulan transporter nearby. Clearly time to leave. They rode out of the city only leaving behind a dust cloud for the puzzled reinforcements.
Ten minutes later the civilian population of Leda prime would look surprised at the newsfeed broadcasted at every console in the system. Instead of the imperial propaganda painting the rebels as degenerate savages, they would hear about the exploits of the republic and the deeds they did for the better of all romulans and remans.
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