Brandon was rudely awoken by the sounds of sirens, muffled through the bacta he was floating in.  Doing a quick Sith routine, he gave himself a once-over internally to see if his injuries were cured.  Great, Bran thought, the deep healing trance and the bacta have made me as good as new.

                Reaching out to the Force, Brandon popped the top of the bacta tank and levitated himself out.  The med-techs were surprised to see the naked Imperial vault out of the bacta tank three days ahead of schedule.  They were even more surprised when they felt their breath cut out from under them.  It was the last thing they felt.

                Brandon quickly donned the uniform of one of the med-techs, and found his stuff in a locker, including his lightsaber.

                The young Dark Jedi sprinted from the medlab, fighting his way past the Rebel soldiers there.  A lightsaber thrust here, a blaster bolt there, and before long, all was quiet on the Medical level. 

                Reaching down to one of the Rebel corpses, he pulled out a standard-issue comlink and tuned into Typhoon's tactical frequency.

                "Attention all Imperials, this is Lieutenant Command Brandon Oakley, and I'm back from the dead…"

                "We gathered that, Brandy," said a voice from behind the pilot.  "Nice outfit."

                Bran turned to see Nightwolf, Jenn and Ehart standing there, clad in combat fatigues and brandishing various weapons.  "Guys!"  Bran exclaimed.  "How did you find me?"

                "Simple, my young Padawan," Ehart said.  "A Sith can always find another Sith."

                "Amen to that, Battlemaster," Nightwolf said.  "Let's go.  Calli, Andron and BB are trying to secure us a ride out of here."

                "There, that looks like a good one," BB said, pointing to an unkempt-looking Galofree Yards Medium Transport, christened the Golden Shot.

                "Excuse me, sirs," the floating Eljay said, "But that craft will not be sufficient to elude the Dreadnought and its A-Wing squadrons, even with the considerable piloting abilities of the rest of the Squadron."

                "We're not going to elude them," Andron said.  "We're going up there, and we're gonna toast that dreadnought from the inside."

                "Are you sure that's safe, sir?"  Eljay asked.  "The odds of successfully completing such a task are two hundred and seventy five thousand six hundred and twenty five to one."

                "Never tell me the odds," BB said.

                "So, how do we get on board?" Calli asked.  "We don't exactly look like Rebs at the present moment."

                "Relax," Boid said.  "When Domi and Ehart get here we'll pool our Jedi powers and use mind tricks to make the guards think we're the pilots of the transport."  BB gestured back to the corpses slumped behind a stack of crates.

                "Eljay," Andron said, "Any signs of the others?"

                "Yes," Eljay said.  "Commander Ehart, Commander Drear and Captain Vader are approaching.  Commander Nightwolf and Lieutenant Commander Jennifer are also approaching.  I believe they are accompanied by Lieutenant Commander Brandon."

                "Great," Cal said.  "The gang's all here."

                A minute or two later, the members of the Challenge's most notorious squadron were spread out around the cargo bay.

                Using Dark Jedi mind tricks, BB, Ehart and Domi successfully convinced the docking bay guards that the Typhoon pilots were the crew of the Golden Shot.  They then successfully convinced the guards to stop breathing.

                Once on board, Vader used his comm-slicing expertise to open a secure channel to Vexie's and Domi's recovered fightercraft.  Handing the comlink over to Calli, Vader busied himself helping Ehart with preflighting the Shot.

                "Typhoon Lead to Typhoon Five and Ten," Calli said.  "We're gonna pay a visit to our friends in high places.  Stand by to deliver payload on prearranged signal."

                Domi and Vexan acknowledged Calli, the Typhoon CMDR shutting the comlink off.  "So, everyone," she said, "What's our plan once we get on board?"

                "I say we go in shooting," Drear said.  "I'm tired of all this sneaking around."

                Calli shook her head.  "What, and get swiss-cheesed in the process?  No thanks.  Next suggestion."

                "Andron's an Intel agent," Ehart said.  "This sounds like his sort of job."

                Andron looked up from his datapad.  "I suppose you're right, E.  But I'll need you all to come with me."  He put the datapad down on the console.  "I've just modified the Shot's crew manifest.  I'm now Colonel Jerv Dasarra, Commander of the 103^rd New Republic Starfighter Battlegroup, stationed in the Dovis sector.  And you guys are my entourage."

                "That's all well and good, Scottie," Bran said, "But how do we masquerade as Rebs?"

                "Simple," Andron said.  "There's Rebel uniforms in the cargo hold.  I recovered my stuff from the Detention block, so I have my Dasarra IDs, which should be good enough to convince the people on the Dreadnought that we are who we say we are."

                "But we'll be coming from the planet," Cal said.  "Won't that look a teeny weeny bit suspicious?"

                "Oh, that's easy," Ehart said, "we run the transport suborbital to the planet's other side, leave the atmosphere, make a few hyperspace jumps and orient ourselves to look as of we're coming in from another system."

                "Exactly what I was thinking, E." Andron said, patting Ehart on the shoulder.  "So, shall we do this?"

                Callista nodded.  "Yeah, I think we shall."

FM/LCM Andronicus/Typhoon 2-4/Wing X/ISD Challenge