Chapter 70

Jial sat with Sev'rance, Lilo, Boxe, and Kevan around the main meeting table. Since she had undergone all of her basic training, it was time for Lilo to go on her first mission. And he had the perfect assignment for her. 

"Kid, here is the layout of your first mission.

We have bought Ryloth and own everything on the planet. We have kicked off the previous pests that have been sucking the planet dry and also prevented the people from being sold off but we have been having a few issues.

2 of the previous 5 Ruling Families have not accepted that the planet has been sold and are currently putting up a resistance group. Even though they are wealthier than they have ever been, their people are no longer being sold as slaves, and we are building better cities on the planet, they still want to resist us. So we need to put them down like dogs. 

They have been hiding out in the Bright Lands where random heat storms appear. Due to the varying landscape and unpredictable storms, we have had a difficult time tracking down the rebels. We have destroyed several smaller cells but we have yet to find any members of the families backing them. 

We have been using our other soldiers to take care of them but now they have started to target some of the important facilities we are building around the equator. Sev'rance will be leading the forces and you will be part of that group."

The mission was pretty simple with a decent amount of fighting and not too dangerous but it was also important enough that Jial knew Lilo would not complain about it. 

After he was done going over the reason behind the mission, Sev'rance looked over to Boxe to request additional forces from her.

"Boxe, I need 200 members of your Neo-Crusaders, including Lilo. They are going to be our strike team while we have the Necrons search around for the bases. As soon as they get a hit, I want your Mandalorians to move it fast and hit even harder."

Sev'rance came up with a fairly basic strategy but one that no one else could truly replicate. The dangerous environment meant normal soldiers couldn't risk doing this while no one else had a droid force as large as the Yautjas.

She would create an FOB (forward operating base) in the center of where they believed the main base was located. The Necrons would be deployed from there and scout all over until they found any hints of possible locations. If they confirmed it, the Mandalorians would move in and take out the base before any reinforcements could arrive or the forces inside could retreat. 

"Sounds good to me," Boxe was thinking about which members to send. They had plenty of experienced members but they wanted to mix in a few more inexperienced members like Lilo. 

The pair discussed logistics while Kevan, Lilo, and Jial stayed to the side. Jial and Kevan were not going to take part in the mission so they didn't need to give their opinions while this was Lilo's chance to learn. She was expected to speak less and listen more so she could understand why the duo made the decisions that they did. 

The next day, 1 frigate and 3 corvettes were loaded up with the forces they were planning to deploy and left the Yautja System to head to Ryloth. Thanks to traveling along the Corellian Run, they managed to arrive in only a few hours. 

One of the corvettes entered the atmosphere to act as the FOB while the others stayed in the atmosphere while deploying transports to drop off the Necrons and fighters to act as air support. 

Lilo looked around at all the Mandalorians and frowned as she noticed that she was the smallest one there as well as the only one without a Basilisk War Droid. During the short time that she had been out of the Time Chamber, she had been unable to get one since she had to prepare all of her armor and weapons for the upcoming mission. 

Lilo began rubbing Dral's egg and was about to call out to it when she felt a hand on her shoulder. Lilo was surprised to see that Jial had accompanied them, though she had not seen him board the ships at all. 

"Godfather," Lilo called out shyly

"Hmm," Jial nodded to her. "Do not summon Dral unless you get permission from Sev'rance. She is the commander. Go help the others."

"Yes, Godfather," Lilo nodded, immediately getting rid of her idea to summon Dral. She started to walk over to the others and help unload the tents and defense stations. Although all of them would be sleeping on the ship, the tents were meant to be used as a trap in case there were any sudden attacks. 

Once all the tents were set up, the Necrons were sent out to go and scout around the area. They would officially start hunting the rebels the next day, this was just to secure their perimeter. 

The initial wave of Necrons killed a few hostile creatures and captured some lone Twi'leks but after some interrogation, they did think that any of them were related to the rebels. 

Unfortunately, news traveled slowly on Ryloth. Even with all the slaves that were sold off, most of the money went into either the pockets of the few big families or those off the planet. Many of the citizens still lived in constant poverty with few towns even having a single communicator shared amongst them. 

This was one of the reasons why Jial was so willing to enforce his control of the planet, even through violent military force. He bought the planet fairly and he would not let the few holdouts stop him from developing this planet into something beautiful. 

The few Twi'leks who were captured were brought to the cells on the corvette where they were treated properly. Although they were captured, they were probably eating and sleeping better than 99.99% of the Twi'leks on the planet. 

With area secured, the Yautja went to sleep, ready to prepare for their upcoming campaign on the planet.