The three banners hanging from the high ceiling of the circular War Room waved gently in a false breeze from the air recirculators. The room was darkened, as usual for their operational planning missions, and the four faces surrounding the holoprojector pedestal were lit starkly from below. Arkwright's latest head wound stung slightly, but he pushed the sensation out of his mind. It was becoming clear that very hefty things were afoot, but they didn't know much more about them at this point than that.

Auriga opened the meeting by addressing the figure across from him. "Commander, you've read the reports?"

"Yessir, on the way over."

"Good. McCathan and Ean Der haven't been briefed on their contents yet."

Arkwright took the cue. "Okay, guys. Yesterday, a few things started to fall into place. None of it really leads to any kind of a picture yet, but we're beginning to build a frame for it."

He poked some buttons on the control pad at his waist, and a hologram of a tweedy little old man condensed into sight above the table.

"This guy look familiar at all, Conall?"

McCathan frowned in surprise, his eyebrows crunching towards each other. "That's the silly old fart that blew up his lab while we were dirtside. One of the mechanics called him by name ... Cerebus, I think it was?"

"Yep, Anton Cerebus. I caught it on the vox, and didn't think to run it by Intel until after the mission. Turns out," Arkwright said, hiding a grin, "this silly old fart is the Empire's top scientist and technology development specialist. He and Bevel Lemelisk were associates," he added, referring to the chief design engineer on the Death Star project.

Ean Der started to chuckle, his brain tails fidgeting at the ends. "You had that guy by the collar and almost botched the mission for it, and then just let him go?" He laughed out loud.

"I didn't recognize him any better than you would have, Lieutenant," McCathan replied coolly. Arkwright breathed a sigh of relief one of the Corporals Wind wasn't in his place - that jab would have started an argument for sure. Cor was understandably sore about the marines having accomplished their branch of objectives so much more sloppily than his own, since it had nearly cost him another starfighter.

"We've known a little about him for quite some time, but his projects have never really seemed very ... practical."

"He's a mad scientist," Auriga finished for him.

The hologram continued rotating. Anton Cerebus was a hunched man, almost comically proportioned. His face was an angular hook nose and equally protuberant chin tacked onto a round head. He would look like a mad scientist anyway, even if it weren't for the half-lens glasses perched on the end of his nose and the odd way he had of walking with his elbows bent and his hands dangling in front of him.

"Exactly. Thank you, sir. The man's a genius, but he's never really had a good touch with reality."

Conall nodded. "He thought we were base security. When I tried to interrogate him he thought I was trying to get a status report on his research, and just being very rude about it."

"From his profile that sounds like him, all right. He's terribly senile, and constantly needs lab technicians to remind him what he's doing. He's probably already forgotten about your visit, Conall."

"So long as he didn't report in before then, that's perfectly green with me."

"What intrigues me," the captain interjected, "is what he told you during your little chat." Auriga seemed to bite off the last few words slightly, as if he were as sore as Ean Der, who nodded in agreement.

"It could have gone more smoothly," Arkwright confirmed, "but recon was also in the mission parameters, sir. And it's not as if they stopped for tea and biscuits with him."

Auriga shot his executive officer a look across the dais, who stood his ground unflinchingly. Even if it wasn't totally by the numbers, what Conall found out with his detour was forming the basis for their next mission - if all they'd done was knock out the defense reactor, they'd have an easy time on their next infiltration but nothing much to do when they went.

"Regardless," Auriga growled, turning his attention back to McCathan, "we now know that not only is the Empire's top scientist on the planet, but so is the other half of this mystery map, our piece of which R&D has still not deciphered. In their last message to me they said it seemed they wouldn't be able to figure it out unless they had the entire thing. Apparently the language used is too intricately interrelated."

"That's not all their report said, though, right?" Arkwright prompted.

"Oh, yes. Bullet Point Number Two," Auriga continued. Arkwright switched the display for him while he spoke. Cerebus scrambled into static, which reformed as a Corellian Corvette. "The verdict is in on the Dearborn."

"I didn't think there was a verdict to be made," Ean Der said. "We found the Dearborn, and Wolfe just wanted to be a pain in the neck and send us out to confirm it again."

"Well, it's a good thing he did," Auriga replied. "It's not the Dearborn."

"What?" McCathan and Ean Der cried in unison.

"She was the Rebel Blockade Runner Tranquility II, gone missing in the next sector a month ago with 58 souls on board."

Ean Der looked ready to spit. "That doesn't make any sense. The Dearborn sent the distress signal."

"That she did. The only explanation I've been able to come up with is that the Tranquility was captured by these pirates a month ago and lost in the battle with the Dearborn, which was also captured."

"That's a stretch," McCathan argued. "Even if that were likely, not even my marines could storm a Corellian Corvette in the time between when that signal was sent and when we dropped from lightspeed."

"I know that," Auriga said. "I never claimed it was a good explanation." He gave a lukewarm smile.

"That's just secondary right now anyway," Arkwright said, stepping in to bring the meeting back on course. "Our concern right now is the Empire."

Auriga nodded. "Right. On that dustball rock beneath us right now are some of the Empire's top research, its top scientist, and a very old piece of paper that's obviously fairly valuable to them, and is therefore equally valuable to us just because we can take it."

"And we're going to?" McCathan asked, brightening visibly.

"Aye. There's only one problem ... "

"Well, there always is."

Arkwright changed the display again, conjuring a menacing wedge shape familiar to all of them.

"The Imperial Star Destroyer Judicator. We ran into her once before while going after one piece of the map. Our presence in the system has apparently been compromised, since she's on her way here as we speak.

"So," Auriga said, clearing the display and leaning over the table intently, "this is what we're going to do ... "