[b]3963 years before the Battle of Yavin, in Gthrak, a planet of the Colonies Region of the Galaxy, in the Galactic Republic...[/b] IRSOG-37 was, along with IRSOG-23 and IRSOG-9, parceled into small freighters, smuggling craft, basically, of diverse types; the pilot for the craft Zhiss was packed into, a KT-350 type assault shuttle piloted a Twi'lek that went by the callsign "Suicide" and seemed to fly like that. The ride was what one might expect on the so-called "Duct Tape Express" (or so was stenciled on the fuselage), but Zhiss was centered within herself; she had her lightsaber and a tool belt, along with the jump packs that the Colonel, a Bothan, had insisted upon. There was little to see in the troop bay itself, bathed in the soft red light that militaries seemed to insist on using in operations, but they had at least a viewport to see out of -- so she looked. Gthrak, a ball of green, purple and blue that hung in space, grew closer, she stayed out of the conversation between the Republic troopers in the troop bay, along with a couple of the other Jedi and Padawans. Soon, the ship seemed to shudder as it hit resistance, along with a belated intercom warning to 'strap in, we're going down steep' from the Twi'lek, who was affecting a Coruscanti accent. Much of the interior of the ship was taken up by pallets of extra supplies with parachutes rigged to them -- after the troops jumped with their packs, the Suicide would fly low and deploy the chutes behind him, which would pull the cargo right out of the bay. The Republic military had some acronym for it, but Zhiss didn't remember. But it seemed a fast way to unload everything and give Suicide a chance to shoot out of the system, hopefully past the Mandalorian air defenses, too quickly to be easily tracked. The last shudder wasn't atmosphere, nor were the subsequent booms or the flying sparks inside the Duct Tape Express, or the flames that started to eat away at the interior of the ship as a klaxon screamed in a cargo bay now lit by flame as well as red light. Someone was yelling, "JUMP! JUMP! JUMP!" as the cargo doors were whirring open, letting in a whoosh of the Gthraki atmosphere to fight against as those who could staggered to the edge and jumped. Looking up as her rocket pack started to flare jets at far too high an altitude, she saw the flames and the smoke trail as the Duct Tape Express plunged toward the giant flowering pink, purple and green trees of the huge jungle, seemingly very far away from the plateau of Mt. Hanlo, where their target was. Down below was a dangerous, fetid swamp full of introduced Nexu and various native beasts. ...and, of course, the Mandalorians. The same orbital defenses they were supposed to disable managed to shoot small shuttles down, which meant that they were considerably better than expected. They were only supposed to sabotage the Ion cannon batteries of Hanlo, but it looked to Zhiss like their job just doubled, because whatever took the freighters of three whole IRSOGs wasn't going to let them get picked up after the job was done on Hanlo. The HUD display that came with the jump pack's oxygen mask advised the deployment of a chute due to a lack of fuel to properly cushion the landing safely. She was an experienced paraglider and jumper, but nothing ever prepared her for jumping out of a flaming freighter at a too-high altitude for jump pack use into a huge jungle with trees all over. The best she could do was aim for the water -- that wasn't the safest sort of landing, but at least she'd survive that first and then have a moment to avoid any local wildlife. She throttled her jet pack to give her a good angle of approach and then waited to deploy the chute, relying on the Force to give her a good idea when. She wouldn't drown; Falleen were amphibious. She didn't fancy sustaining an injury trying to land among trees. And the Force was right -- some of the others popped the chute too early and made themselves floating targets for Mandalorian gunships with open doors. She could feel their deaths in the force even as she recited the Code in her mind -- it wasn't much, but it was what she had. She got to "There is no death" when she popped the chute and suddenly realized that she'd just seen a refutation of that. There was plenty of death to be had by all. It was a grim realization to hit the water with and then she had no time for realization. Something swam close by her as she tore off the straps to the depleted rocket pack and the emergency parachute, and kicked herself toward whatever shore she could see -- treeline and moss, which was good enough. Whatever it was swimming at her, and the Force gave her the sense of a beast whose kind had spent millions of years evolved to hunt in these waters, she gave it a kick to a spot that the Force guided her to as she used every bit of strength she had to pull herself through the water and onto dry land. She was safe for the moment, but sodden from water and not alone; she felt that in the Force too, a familiar presence, which meant someone off the Intruder, the home base of IRSOG-37. "Who is that?" she asked as she took her saber in hand, though she didn't ignite it yet.