Besk shrugged, "Yeah, well, after this cockup by Intel, I think we're done trying to establish contact with Slooga's old buddies. They're too likely to turn." He also knew, by dint of sleeping with an Intruder officer, not that it was precisely regs compliant, but also that the Lieutenant didn't necessarily know about that -- yet -- that the Intruder crew were actually in the Rebellion, much as they were former pirates and used to work for Slooga, the Empire had killed a couple of their crew, who were part of a family clan of sorts from their planet, Invikon, a shady Outer Rim shithole with strange clan practices that translated to a lot of the Intruder crew being relatives, though they still had a couple outsiders in their ranks much like the Liberators.

Point was, they were only sort of Slooga's employees anymore, and the fiction was maintained only because Slooga didn't try to push it and because they figured taking Slooga in would piss off the Empire.

There was a rumble under foot as the shuttle kicked in the thrusters and lifted off, and it was second nature for Besk to grab a handhold on the bulkhead and steady himself on his feet as the shuttle lifted. Thirty seconds of combat, then heavy lifting and running around, and they were drenched in sweat. But, they had a truck full of loot.

The return to the Intruder was without much fanfare, because 1st Platoon hauled in its own, zipped up in the bags that were, perhaps morbidly so, stored on the transport for just an event. No one wanted to look at their dead friends, so they got them zipped in quickly after stripping useful equipment off them. They'd be properly handled at Vanguard, where there was a memorial of sorts for the dead followed by a general agreement to get good and plastered off whatever there was available for the purpose. 

In the meantime, the living, once they stacked the dead into their own small compartment, out of everyone's sightline, there was work to be done of another sort; between Sola, who seemed to be at times broodingly distant and then aggressively affectionate, and the duty that everyone either assigned to themselves or got assigned by an NCO, which in his case involved checking the weapons they acquired as well as repairing anything that could be repaired, and whatever else struck his fancy as the armory officer. When he slept, which was to say in the Gunnery Officer's bunkroom, HK-51 was set to guard the weapons locker, which he did, according to reports, disturbingly.

"Report: Meatbags approached the weapons locker thirty seven times while I was on alert, and I warned each one to keep their distance."

"You don't have to warn them unless they try to access it."

"Query: How would you define 'access' master? I simply wish to warn all meatbags that attempts to access the weapons locker I am assigned to guard like a mere sentry droid will be disintegrated with great pleasure."

The droid had picked a disintegrator rifle as its weapon of choice; it wasn't reassuring.

"Simply stop them if they try to actually get into the locker by physically opening the door. Otherwise, you do not need to challenge everyone that passes by the Weapons Locker -- there's a head near it, that's why so many troopers pass, HK-51."

"Statement: Of course, Master. While you are assigning more parameters to a task that mocks my advanced positronic brain, would there be any other indignities you would like to inflict upon me?"

"Not at this time."

"Statement: Very well master, I am forced by programming to obey your wishes, however much I feel that your kind ways are a tremendous mistake and would prefer to make an example of at least one meatbag that comes too close to the weapons locker. Perhaps I could activate my assassination protocols on the hutt? My calculations predict that elimination of that particularly loathsome, squishy meatbag would extend the ship's consumables store by an extra three months..."

Out of the pile of bounty hunter weaponry, Besk picked a SoroSuub firelance blaster rifle, a bullpup weapon favored by bounty hunters that was well-represented among their opponents at Ganatoo, and started modifying it with accessories. When he modified one, then he started working on the others, adding mounts for optics and other useful items that the typical Rebel infantry, who favored accuracy in most things, favored on their blasters. 

It helped pass the time, along with the speeder truck -- that was being broken down by several people, the engine souped up and the thing stripped down to a bare chassis and then rebuilt with armor plating and two mounted repeating blasters -- one in the truck bed, the other in an open turret on the passenger side. Open-topped now, it allowed troopers to quickly mount and dismount, but could also function as a cargo vehicle or a way to get wounded to a shuttle fast. It also gave people something to do.

Meanwhile, Vanguard liberty loomed, and Besk was half-waiting and half-dreading it; they'd get to blow off steam, but they had to say a final goodbye to friends and then take on a new batch of recruits. It got easier, but the unease in the soul never quite went away,