The Spies Tale - SWG Fanfic

The hunter was tired.

He had been watching the small military base for a long time now. His daily routine had remained unchanged for over a week. Washing, shaving and all other toilet functions had been carried out in the narrow confines of the OP. The waste from these processes bagged and removed before the local wildlife literally got scent of him.

Under cover of dark he'd carefully extract himself from the dugout, covering the entrance and his tracks and scattering the contents of the small bag into the lair of some native scavengers 500m away. Returning to his lair he was wary not only of the local predators but of the small intruder detection sensors he'd hidden to cover the blind area behind his OP. Anyone approaching from that direction would trigger a small vibrating alarm tucked into the lining of his helmet. If necessary he could detonate flash bombs and shrapnel mines remotely from the OP, but so far the enemies patrols had remained a good distance away.

Five days ago the activity in the base had changed. Sentries were more alert, the compound had been tidied and the whole base gave off an air of expectancy that any soldier would know signalled the impending visit of some brass. And three days ago the personal skiff of one of the Divisional Commanders had arrived, flanked by swoops and followed by two large troop carriers.

For the next 48 hours the base literally bristled with blasters, echoed to the sound of barked commands and took on the appearance of a well run Military Establishment.

The hunter had watched all this, recording images of troops for the intel guys to scan over later looking for, well, whatever it was that the intel guys looked for. He'd taken high resolution images of any face that came into view. Most of the troopers were, of course, in full battle armour but the officers and NCO's wore battledress uniforms. Again, the intel boys would pore over those images, trying to marry up faces to information scanned from radio chatter, picked up from data transfers and 'acquired' from the dancers and entertainers in the garrisons home town.

This morning the troop carriers had pulled out leaving the skiff and a few swoops. The Divisional COmmander seemed to have settled in for a longer stay. It was time to head down to camp and find out just what he was up to.

The hunter made one final check of his equipment. Everything was where it should be, harnesses were tight but didn't squeak, additional charge packs for the snub nosed carbine slung round his neck were in ready pouches around his waist. Bacta packs in the thigh pockets of his trousers. Other equipment just in the right place to be reached fast.

Moving quietly out of the OP, he primed the demoliton charges and removed the intruder devices from the scrub behind the dugout. Using dead ground and natural cover he moved down to within earshot of the few troopers now on sentry duty at the compound. A probot droid sat motionless near the fenceline and he primed a carbon fibre chaff unit to detonate if the droid powered up. The resulting flash and explosion would give him warning that the base' defence net had detected him while the carbon fibres would seriously interfere with the droids electronics.

Before proceeding further he activated the cloaking device he had been provided with. To all but the closest observers he was now effectivley invisible. This would allow him to make his way into the compound and possibly even into the officers quarters, but only at the cost of having to move at a slow walking pace. The electronics that drove the image projection unit which was the heart of the cloaking device could not cope with rapidly changing backgrounds, so a nervewracking babystepping walk it had to be.

He further decreased the likely hood of being seen by keeping out of the troopers eyeline, staying in shadows and sliding along walls. The projector could handle largely uniform surfaces, such as walls, so this sideways slide had become known as wall-crawling.

Once inside the building the chances of being discovered went up dramatically and he readied the carbine while stowing the image projector. Keeping low and moving silently he made his way down the short corridor and, using a small mirror, checked there was nobody in the Divisional office. He stepped in, quickly moved to the document folders and map on the desk, recording everything he could see.

Footsteps in the hallway alerted him to the return of the rightful occupant of the room and he quickly moved to a position where he'd be hidden by the open door. As the officer stepped into the room he was felled by a crushing blow to the base of the skull. The body went limp and was, more or less, quietly lowered onto the floor.

Moving quickly into the hall the hunter was horrified to see two more uniformed staff walking towards the office. As their mouths began to form the word HALT! he tossed a small metal tube in their direction which erupted with a blinding flash and thunderous bang, creating thick, choking smoke which, together with the stunning percussion would delay any pursuer for a few moments.

The carbine was now nestled against his forearm and, as he turned and headed towards the exit, it barked noisily, scattering bolts of highly modified energy in the direction of the two confused troopers who had just appeared in the doorway. Despite their training the desire to protect ones self kicked in and they instinctively ducked back and away from the fire spitting from the short barrelled weapon.

The hunter, now very much the prey, dropped another flash bang and sprinted for the fenceline. With his free hand he pressed the trigger on the transmitter on his chest causing the demolition charge in the now abandoned OP and the flare by the probot to detonate. In the resulting confusion he grabbed the nearest swoop, flicked the igniter switch over and roared out of the base directly towards the fireball by the old OP.

As he had hoped the light and vibration had attracted a pair of kimoglia dragons. The careful cleaning of his skin, during the time he was laid up in the OP, with the leaves of native plants helped mask his alien odour slightly. The very different odour of the troopers, stuck inside their hot, heavy armour all day and sleeping in the same ready-suits overnight was far more noticable to the waiting lizards which ignored the single fast moving swoop and instead began lumbering towards the troopers moving out from the base.

Almost predictably the troopers began to fire on the approaching kimoglia pack.

Slowing only long enough to turn and make one last recording of the ensuing carnage, the hunter set his navcom to the waypoint for the exfil point. In a little over 20 minutes he should be safely on his way back off planet and out of this sector, the data he'd managed to capture on it's way to the intel guys, to do whatever it was that they did with information gathered in the field.