Saga of the Bridgers-Year 3

Chapter 22: Revolving Door

December 23.

Aboard the Constantinople, the air was tense, but morale was high.

After Ezra's adventure on Tatooine, it was decided for the Task Force Magellan to strike the prison on Dornea, where both the crew of the INS Athens and many indigenous people were being held in a prison camp.

Three other frigates, the INS Chalcedon, the INS Adrianople and the INS Antioch, would also employ their marines for the assault.

The purpose of the operation, which had been nicknamed 'Crowbar', was to rescue the prisoners, but also try to disperse the Empire's forces for the attack on Lothal. While four of the seven frigates of Task Force Magellan would take part in the attack, the remaining three were about to launch a strike on Garel in cooperation with Nimbus' agents. If coordinated with this strike, it might lead the Empire's leadership to believe that the Allies were softening the ground for a full-scale invasion of the sector.

Despite all its benefits, Lothal wasn't the only valid planet for the Federation to establish a bridgehead. In fact, the same Dornea had some potential, but the local species had been mostly isolated from the rest of the galaxy for most of its history and occupying the planet would probably incur in the wrath of the Dorneans. In fact, there was already a resistance movement against the Empire, on the planet, that the Alliance had tried to reach in the last few days.

The double attack would thus force the Empire to spread the Sector Fleet, giving the rebels an opportunity to strike the factory in the next two or three days. Lothal was the only planet near enough to the wormhole with the infrastructures to sustain a massive invasion force like the one that was expected to arrive.

"I'm so used to the Imperial ship's design...this is definitely coming from another galaxy." Kallus commented to the siblings, who had just finished showing him around the common area of the ship on Deck 3.

Yes, Agent Kallus had definitely threw away his nomenclature of an Imperial agent and went back to his birth name: Alexsandr Kallus, now an agent of the Rebellion.

He was going to play an important role in the upcoming operation, since he, the siblings and a camouflaged Raze were supposed to land in advance with an imperial shuttle, infiltrate the structure and snatch the control room from the Empire, in order to deactivate the defensive turrets and prevent the imperials from calling reinforcements from Lothal.

The siblings chuckled at him. "And just wait until you taste their food." Jaral commented. The siblings were sitting on a side of the table, Kallus on the other.

"I never eat before a mission, though. It'll have to wait." he replied with a joking tone.

"What?" Ezra mocked surprise. "The Empire tells you to go into battle with an empty stomach? No wonder we always managed to outrun you."

Kallus scoffed twice. "I remember capturing you on our very first encounter."

"Yeah, but I was still inexperienced, and then I escaped the cell pretty much on my own." Ezra replied with a smirk.

The three chuckled.

"Jokes aside, have you learned how to use the omni-tool?" Jaral asked.

For this mission, Kallus had been given an omni-tool through a sub-dermal implant that took only five minutes to install. That was because the plan implied the three of them and Raze to pose themselves as an ISB agent making a surprise inspection in search for a suspected traitor between the personnel of the prison. But since Dornea was literally next to Lothal, there was a risk someone might recognize Kallus, so he would use the hologram function of the device to change his face, while the siblings would pose as stormtroopers.