Debrief Report
Strike Team Leader
Mission: Operation Null Strike

     Our strike team was called upon to act on information that had been obtained through Imperial Intelligence.  Our team was to apprehend or eliminate Val Duquesne.  Our team was inserted planet side within a day of Duquesne arriving on planet.  The insertion was clean, as was learning where Duquesne was located.  We learned that she had more troops on planet that we were originally informed of, and that she had brought with her her Elite Corps of troopers, which included some of her strongest Lieutenants.  Our goal was to infiltrate her Elite Corps, grab her, and get clear before too much attention was noticed that she was no longer there.  The time table that the plan called for was three days, as she was leaving in five days.  Just as we were ending the call for extraction in five days, we lost all communication with Task Force Command.  At the moment, we chalked it up to them running into a patrol and had to shutdown all communication so the enemy wouldn't be able to call for help.  As we were making preparations for our mission, we learned that the real reason that we lost communications was that a large portion of the Void Raptor fleet had arrived in orbit and cut off all communications off planet.  We speculated that either she, or her Lieutenants, knew that there was a spy in their midst or that the mole that we think is planted in our fleet warned her of our strike team.  Either way, we realized that we were under pressure and running out of time.  We had to revise our plan as we now assumed that they were on to us.  We knew that there was a station in orbit that served as a customs and entry point to planet side, it's how we made our entry.  There was a shuttle that made multiple runs everyday to and from the station.  Booking passage was easy enough to set up as the station hosted a casino and other resort-like facilities. 

     
     Our revised plan was to re-infiltrate the soldiers to gain more information on her whereabouts, and hopefully learn what her itinerary while she was on planet.  Each member had successfully infiltrated their respective areas and garnered valuable information about the Void Raptor soldier inner workings, but not much was gained towards finding her location or her itinerary.  It seems that her Elite Corps is invitation only, and we did not have enough time to create a background that would have allowed a member to gain access to the Corps, so we abandoned that part of the plan.  Among the her soldiers there were whispers of rumors that she might have a Jedi in her Elite Corps, but that was discounted as we checked medical records and casualty reports and there were no reports of any lightsaber injuries or unexplained deaths that could be Force related.  Another revision to the plan had us waiting for our extraction to cause enough of a problem that Duquesne had to go up to her flagship.  
 
     We waited for the remaining three days, continuing to gather as much information that we could to use at a later time.  
When our extraction arrived everything went sideways, her troops went on high alert, security tightened, and they grounded all shuttle traffic to the station, which caused us to implement our Plan-B for extraction.  Which was to try to apprehend or eliminate Duquesne when she arrived at the platform housing her shuttle, and then acquire a shuttle to get to the station, then on to the nearest extraction vessel.  We stationed ourselves around the landing platform, some of us disguised ourselves as workers to give us a more free reign of the area, while the rest of us sat near the edges of the crowds that had gathered wanting to board a shuttle to the station for some vacationing or to get off planet on some business or other.  

 

     A little after noon, local time, our look out spotted a small armored military transport headed towards the landing platform.  At the time we thought it was just her Elite Corps coming to secure the area for her arrival, but as it neared the platform our look out saw that there was a second speeder trailing very close behind the transport in the wake of the dust that it was kicking up.  When the transport came near our group that was standing around waiting four Elites jumped off the side of the transport and pointed their weapons at us keeping us where we were, as the transport and speeder sped on towards her waiting shuttle.  Once the transport and speeder reached the shuttle, those four Elites started backing up towards the vehicles, creating more space between themselves and gathered group of waiting people.  Our disguised workers had made their way into a very strategic place where our best shot was able to have a clear line of sight to the boarding ramp of Duquesne's shuttle.  The only problem was that now that the vehicles had stopped, the rest of the Elites were spreading out to give a 360 degree perimeter around all three vehicles, while a pair of them were headed directly for the position that our marksman had taken up.  Having only about a minute or so before they were discovered, we had to come up with a way to keep our other group from being discovered and get here to come out in the open for our plan to work.  There were thirty of them and only twelve of us, so there was a very slight chance that we would succeed in apprehending her, but we had to take the chance anyway.  Timing had to be precise if this was going to work, so once the four Elites were close to getting back to the vehicles, I signaled Demolitions to blow the explosives that he had buried under where we had hoped a vehicle would park for just this reason.  The resulting explosion had thrown the four Elites back towards us, while they were still airborne, myself and Demolitions drew our weapons and each shot two of them before they hit the ground.  We ran for the nearest cover, trying to keep civilian casualties to a minimum, drawing as much of the incoming fire that we could.  Our distraction worked, about half of the Elites turned their weapons toward us as they opened fire, as the door opened on the speeder and Val Duquesne stepped out and started to make her way towards the boarding ramp.  She did look a bit startled that there was someone trying to kill her while she was on the ground, so my only assumption is that she might be unaware of who we were, and that might be useful in future missions.  The Elites must have discovered our Sniper group as they started concentrating their fire in the direction, so our group started randomly shooting at them to gain more time.  Duquesne was surrounded by two of her Lieutenants and four Elites in red armor, the moment that she put one foot on the ramp, her four Elites were dropped one by one with sniper fire, one of the Lieutenants shielded her by placing his body between her and incoming fire.  The second Lieutenant grabbed a rocket launcher from a falling dead Elite and took aim at the sniper position that the other group was entrenched at.  As soon as the rocket left the barrel, the Elites intensified their fire rate, while I could see laser bolts and blaster bolts trying to shoot the rocket down, but it seemed like they were having a hard time tracking the rocket.  The rocket hit, blowing the building that the sniper group was stationed on, killing all six of them in a spectacular blast, seeing as that is where the fuel was stored.  The result was that most of the Elites were knocked to their knees, disorienting them, and knocking us and the waiting shuttle group to the ground.  By the time that we all regained our senses, her shuttle was lifting off, and we had nothing on hand that would allow us to eliminate her while she was in the shuttle.  The remainder of us jumped up and rushed to the other waiting shuttle, where our pilot was waiting with an already prepped shuttle to get us out of there.  No sooner had the last of us started up the ramp that the pilot lifted off, activated the shields and blasted our way towards the station and/or our nearest pick-up ship.