The Commander considers the odds, and shrugs. “It will be your court-martial.”

Laying down the carbine, the Commander removes the black helmet to reveal the visage of the tall blonde woman from the casino lounge on their first night at the resort.

“My fire team is topside on the cargo shuttle. These Squamatans have undergone accelerated training and indoctrination, courtesy of Doctor Vos and her cyberware implants. They are loyal to her, and will serve as her security detail. Right now we have a job to do, and if we do it well, you may yet avoid the brig.”

With that, she tugs her helmet back into place and picks up her carbine. “Shall we?”

Hale is surprised. His face turns red in embarrassment, though it isn't visible under his helmet. "You are... not who I was expecting. We just tangled with a traitor who was training Squamatan rebels, I though you were him. Apologies, sir."

He quickly holsters the blaster and walks into the stateroom to just below the vent, pointing out the scuff marks. "Looks like they went through here." He steps up on a swivel chair and starts removing the grate.

"If it's all the same to you, I'll go first. I'm pretty good at unarmed combat and a rifle isn't exactly practical in cramped quarters."

Hale drops the grate with a clatter and hauls himself up into the vent, quickly climbing the ladder until he reaches the first hatch, opening it and scrambling up. As he approaches the next hatch, he can hear the bumps and scrapes of shuffled movement on the other side. Over comms with the rest of the team and the Death Troopers, he says, "I've got movement up here. I'm going to engage..."

He quickly scales the ladder, but the rebel passes into the next chamber just as he clears the hatch. As he scales towards the next hatch, he hears a desperate pounding as the rebel evidently reached a locked hatch. Smiling grimly to himself, he gets ready, then pops the hatch and quickly scrambles up into the chamber.

The fleeing rebel curses quietly as he struggles with the hatch. He knows someone is climbing after him, likely a stormtrooper by the sound of it, laminate echoing up the narrow escape tube.

Hale is nearly upon him, when the man reaches down for his holdout blaster, draws, and bashes the trooper in the face with it. The force of the blow is unexpected, and knocks the stormtrooper off balance, sending him scrabbling to gain purchase on the rungs below.

The force of the blow catches the rebel by surprise too, apparently, for he loses grip and the small blaster disappears down into the shaft below.

As Hale starts to fall, he reaches out and grabs the man's foot with his left arm, grabbing onto one of the rungs with his right. He uses his weight as he falls to yank the man down, cracking his chin on one of the rungs. The rebel yelps and grabs onto a rung slightly below the stormtrooper. Hale kicks down at his face, but he catches the foot in his hand and pulls down and to the side, holding it out of the way.

The Inquisitor enters the room after having dealt with the first bit of rebels, Looking around for any other potential attackers. Spotting Hale wrestling a Rebel that was trying to escape, Drogos decides to watch while also moving around the room past the Deathtroopers to look for any Rebels hiding.

The somewhat uncomfortable dynamic in the small stateroom is not improved by the Inquisitor’s entrance, and the troopers cut their chatter. The only sounds are echoes from the scuffle in the escape shaft above, and a holdout blaster, which clatters down into the stateroom.

Latching onto both the ladder, and the stormtrooper’s leg, the rebel manages to avoid both a sharp kick, and the plummet back down the tube. He does not think he will be able to get past the trooper, now that he has dropped below.

“I don’t suppose.. you would be amenable to compensation.. for, perhaps.. not quite preventing my escape..?“ His voice is strained, but lower, so his words do not carry down the shaft. “I can give you a valuable data spike.. important intelligence.. and a credstick with twenty thousand credits.”

Hale grins under his helmet. "Hang on, gotta make this look real." He shuffles down the ladder so he's parallel with the rebel, then punches him in the face. The rebel yelps in surprise as his head snaps back, cracking against the wall. Looks real, all right.

The Rebel knows he's defeated and just sorta slumps. "I surrender."

"Atta boy..." Hale says. "Now make nice and climb down there. If you're cooperative, it'll go much better for you." The rebel reluctantly begins climbing down the ladder, knowing he's growing inexorably closer to an unpleasant fate.

Turning toward Hale and the Rebel as they make their way down the Inquisitor speaks up, " Good, bind him and prepare him for extraction." Then he turns to the Deathtroopers and Storm Troopers, " Scour the room for any others, I will not tolerate any escapees. Search for any hidden passages, Rats and Rebels tend to like to have crawl spaces so they can scurry at a moments notice!" The Inquisitor stares until action is taken.

Not wanting to cross the Inquisitor, the death troopers begin searching the stateroom, under the bed, opening drawers... No rebels in this one.. nope.. none here... Frak.. hope he can’t read my thoughts!

In his search around the room Drogos stops at a waste bin and spots some Datapads and data spikes that were dropped in a liquid to destroy them. using the force to extract them from the bin he lifts them and turns back to the crew, " Agent, Dry these, and see if they can have their information recovered." The inquisitor said gesturing for Briar to step forward and grab what he had floating out of the waste bin.

After the quick misunderstanding is smoothed, Evon turns the repeater pistol and casually forgetting about the confiscated grenades, hands the blaster back to the squamatan on the floor. ,,You know, safety first. No hard feelings, right? I'll tend your wound if you stay still for some moment."

Evon stitched a lot of spacers before. Most of them humanoid, but he had the luck to do an autopsy on a hutt before. However he still felt like a newbie intern when he looked at the wound. It looked far worse than it should have been.

He peaks inside. ,,Is it a bowel? That's not supposed to be here." He moves a minor gland, and the Squamatan twitches. ,,Sorry, my bad, almost done!" ,,Okay, so that's a vessel, that's a nerve... Oouh, what's that?"

,,Your body is fascinating!" - adds Evon turning to the trooper almost his whole hand inside the wound. It looks back at him outraged and Evon quickly realizes what did he start. ,,Almost done, almost done!" He tries to seal the damaged tissue, but it's not working as it should be. He decides to close the wound. ,,Here, this synthskin gonna protect your wound while healing. You might have some slight discoloration though. Check it with a Xenologist or it won't get better.

With that, he packs up, gives a hand to the death trooper, helping him up, who is reluctant to accept it and gets up on his own, picking up his blaster and reuniting with its group.

,,It was still a fascinating body..." Evon murmurs to himself.

“Apprecciate it, Doc. Sss.. I’ll sstay sstill, but it burnss..” The Squamatan death trooper winces as he holsters his sidearm, seeming not to miss the grenades at the moment. Waving off the doctor’s assistance, he struggles to rise on his own. “You have helped enough.”

The rebel drops down into the stateroom- his stateroom - and immediately regrets not fighting harder in the shaft. A handful of troopers in black on one side, and stormtroopers on the other. He pales noticeably when he catches sight of the Inquisitor; and then there is the ISB Officer, who has just been instructed to salvage the dataspikes and pad.

”Ahh.. You will probably want to wear gloves, before handling those. You see, I accidentally spilled something rather caustic on them.”

”And what is the meaning of this? I am simply a receptionist. I left the desk, and was heading up for my daily spa treatment, when this man accosted me!”

Hale slides the rest of the way down the ladder, landing at the bottom with a Chunk of laminate plates. " Technically, you accosted me. I was just climbing faster than you. If climbing up a ventilation shaft is the most direct route to a spa, it must be quite a place. Tell us about it, maybe we'll check it out."

“It is not the most direct route, but taking the ladder is an integral part of my fitness regime.” The man straightens his clothing, which is more like a uniform than fitness apparel, though it bears no insignia.

"Alright, you said you had a cred stick of twenty thousand and a dataspike with intel. I'll play good cop. If I don't like your answer, I hand you to bad cop." He gestures to the Inquisitor. "Where's the intel?"

Briar put on a pair of gloves from her ISB kit before taking the dataspikes from the inquisitor. "Of course." she said in response to the inquisitor. Before turning to the rebel. "Quite a unique exercise outfit you have there, Mr. Prin. Looking at this room I find it hard to believe you "accidentally" spilled something caustic on them. Why did you try to destroy them." Briar finished giving the man a hard stare.

The rebel pretends not to notice Briar’s use of his name. “Is that a rhetorical question?”

Turning to Hale, he reaches inside his jacket with exaggerated slowness. “I am procuring the spikes now.” He hands them over. “I may have exaggerated the value of the contents a bit, under the circumstances. I’m sure you understand.”

"Oh sure, sure." Hale says as he accepts the items. "Unfortunately, the Inquisitor might want to confirm that you actually were , and this isn't a ploy to throw us off." At the look of fear in the man's eyes, Hale raises his hands defensively, "Don't look at me . I'm not the one who allegedly lied in an attempt to bribe a stormtrooper. Next time be truthful in your bribery." He slips the dataspikes into a pouch on his utility belt, planning to give them to the agent once her hands are free.

"No, but I don't expect you to answer it." Briar replies to Prin "Oh, and I'll just add bribery to the list of charges, should go nicely with resisting arrest and treason." she finishes looking at the rebel for any information, as he has been making a valiant effort not to give anything away.

“Look. I am a reasonable man. Soon to be horribly tortured and then executed. I know this. But what if I did get away..? Wouldn’t I be far more useful to you alive, Inspector Ostell?”