The events of this thread occur concurrently with Liberation - Battle of Bothawui

John let out a grunt, and haulled on the final strap that would keep his equipment secure during their descent. Up until now, he'd been avoiding any thoughts of anything else aside from preparing his gear. It was only now, as he dumped his kit into a convenient the corner of the LAAT/i Gunship's passenger compartment that he allowed himself a few moments to think about what he was doing. Their mission was fairly easy to explain: bail out several thousand feet above the planet below, reach the surface without getting shot, reach the headquarters of the Imperial Garrison without getting shot, and then destroy any surface-to-air weaponry that might cause a problem for the later deployment of ground forces. Without getting shot. That last objective was one that he planned to focus on quite strongly over the coming hours.

In practice, their mission would be much harder to achieve than it sounded. The altitude of their deployment would require the four-man team to wear life support equipment. The presence of the anti-air ordnance that they were being sent to deploy would make their descent all the more perilous, necessitating a low opening of their parachute equipment. On the ground, they would be completely unsupported, and would be able to use only the gear and ordnance they brought down with them which, given the means of their insertion, was precious little. Not for the first time, John felt a whistful longing for his days as a Jump Trooper with the Empire; at least then the high-tech equipment posessed by the Stormtrooper Corps had been an advantage, rather than an obstacle.

He supposed that things could have been worse. SpecForce had pulled together a trio of experienced Pathfinders to accompany them on this mission. With any luck, they might be able to pull something off. Still, he couldn't help but feel a little nervous. Four men against an Imperial Garrison certainly sounded like the heroics that the Rebellion was famous for, but there was usually a Jedi involved whenever those missions were a success.

John turned, and nodded a greeting to another of the team as he arrived. "Sergeant."