Dramatis Personae:
Aretah Drayson: human female, Mandalorian bounty hunter
Arcann Tirall: human male, Prince to Eternal Throne
Dan'ielle Callaway: human female, Sith Sorcerer
Fathi: mirialan female, Jedi Sage
Ilar'jer: lethan twi'lek female, Jedi Sentinel
Jen'chwuq: sith pureblood female, Imperial Intelligence agent
Käle Callaway: human female, Mandalorian bounty hunter
Koth Vortena: human male, former Zakuulan soldier
Kthira'nn'ath: chiss female, Imperial Intelligence agent
Lana Beniko: human female, head of Sith Intelligence
Lish'an: twi'lek female, smuggler scoundrel
Nystaha: mirialan female, Havoc Squad commander
Prard'raya'nurudo: chiss female, Sith Juggernaut
Ri'shaval Nirtrayn: zabrak female, Imperial Intelligence agent
Saigra Teenu: zabrak female, Sith Sorcerer
Senkä Callaway: human female, Jedi Shadow/Sith spy
Senya Tirall: human female, Knight of the Eternal Throne
Theron Shan: human male, former SIS
Valkorion: human male, Emperor of the Eternal Throne
Vaylin Tirall: human female, Princess to Eternal Throne
Prologue
The Knights stand to attention as the doors slide open, as the Prince walks in.
His footsteps echo and for an instant, he swears Thexan stands beside him (it is Thexan's rightful place; to walk beside him).
But instead, the Prince kneels before the figure standing at the throne. At the back of the man who chose him as the stronger.
"Father. They've come."
Arcann doesn't dare look up as his father's voice rumbles through the empty space. "I already know."
Valkorion doesn't deign to turn and look at his son (at the sole surviving twin). Instead, his hand touches the console built into the throne. The combined forces of both the Republic and his failed experiment of an Empire approached. Pathetic, all of them-and yet a force to be reckoned with.
The Eternal Fleet would change that.
The Warrior
"I'll be back shortly," Drayan starts, pausing as the door hisses open. At least, she hopes she'd be back shortly, "Have Marr's crew service the Fury in the meantime."
Even had the Wrath not been looking to Vette, she would've heard the grin in her friend's voice.
"Your name usually gets us pretty fast service. Shouldn't be a problem."
Chin up, back straight, strong stride. As befitting the Empire's Wrath, not some Sith hailing from a heritage-less background. "Captain."
The captain, Fora, if she recalled correctly, snapped to attention, saluting. "Lady Wrath. Darth Marr awaits you on the bridge. I trust you recall the way?"
"I do. Thank you, Captain."
Fora stepped to the side as Drayan swept forward, padded boots almost silent on the deck in a stark contrast to the distinct sound of standard issue Imperial boots. Her partner (almost a silent shadow) trailed along two paces behind and a pace to the side.
She remembered the way to the bridge in the way that every flagship carried the same layout. It freed her mind to wander, her senses to seek out familiarity.
She could sense her sponsor, a Sith who clawed up the ranks with nothing but will and wits at her disposal. Her sponsor's siblings, as well, familiar presences that have a different tang to them. A bounty hunter and a Jedi, if she remembered correctly.
The spy and the Jedi, twin virtuosos with lightsabers (and a bond between the two that ran deeper than anyone would admit).
Even Imperial Intelligence made a presence known (even if Intelligence was but a shadow of its former self) in the shape of a harried operative.
The smuggler from Rishi made a distinct point-as did the Havoc squad commander. How funny, she mused, that they would all stand here as one force.
Before she even turns the last corridor leading to the bridge, she could hear the chatter. Two months ago she would've been on her guard; clipped Republic accents mingling with the looser Outer Rim accent of the twi'lek smuggler and the lazy Dromund Kaas accents.
The conversation doesn't even so much as hiccup in flow as the Wrath and her shadow step in the room. It was a nice change. Sometimes one didn't need the entire room to stop and salute for every little thing Drayan did.
Instead, one of the conversations came to an end, and a scrawny blue twi'lek glanced her direction, smirk painting violet accented features. "The whole party's here now. Let's find out what Marr called all us up for."
The Inquisitor
The bridge doors hiss open and Dan'ielle strides through, leading a veritable pack of beings from all corners of the universe. Ashara walks at her elbow, and Jaesa hovers closer to the Wrath.
"We received your message, Marr. And… now that I'm here, I sense it, too."
"We grow closer every moment." Straight to the point as always. Thank you, Marr. "Our former Emperor is out there."
The smuggler, Lish'an, interjected, hopping up to a seat on an unused console. "There's nothin' out here. I don't see why he'd run all the way out here. Lotsa rumors about civilizations, but anytime anyone tries to push into it, their ships don't come back."
"So you're saying he destroyed an entire planet, and then… ran. Like a coward. For what? The guy clearly has power. What's to stop him from repeating Ziost across the galaxy, planet by planet?" Käle looked visibly uncomfortable at the idea. Even Mandalorian armor couldn't protect the mind from domination of the kind Vitiate had displayed.
Marr turns from the viewport to face the ragtag bunch assembled behind him. "Either way, if we find him, I believe I can press the Dark Council into line… into going after Vitiate. Can I count on the same from your Republic?"
A pointed question, heavy with years of distrust and war. Havoc's leader crossed her arms, dark brows tightening under a strict hairline. "I can't speak for the whole Republic, but Havok will back you."
"Sir! Sensor contact, fifteen klicks out. It's small, no lifeform readings, probably a probe." Scarcely had the tech spoken up did another tech follow up.
"Readings are identical to the forces that attacked Korriban."
Marr's commands were immediate. "Raise shields. Pursue and destroy."
Dan'ielle turned her gaze to the viewport again, critical gaze sweeping the area (though she knew the sensors were better equipped for such a duty). The ship hardly lurched beneath her feet than did an entire fleet emerge from hyperspace, filling the area ahead as far as the eye could see. Formations upon formations of ships… in designs she was unfamiliar with.
"The hell is that!" And it didn't take long for commentary from the smuggler. "Those aren't anything like what anyone manufactures!"
"Come about, one-hundred-eighty degrees!"
"They're firing and you wanna charge 'em? You're crazy!"
The bridge erupts into chaos.
The Smuggler
Go to Rishi. It would be fun, they said. You'll be fine, they said. You get to be a pirate, they said.
Well, sure, all that happened. What they neglected to mention was the inevitable attack while she was a) stranded on an Imperial flagship, and b) said attackers launching fucking boarding pods at said ship.
Alarms blared, and Lish'an winced. Neither side knew how to make alarms that weren't…. Alarmy. It'd give her a headache in no time.
"All decks report hostile forces!"
"Yeah, no shit." Lish'an slid off her perch, mentally assessing the group assembled. "Ilar, Fathi, Jen, c'mon. We got boarders to clear out."
Two twi'leks, a Sith Pureblood who couldn't use the Force (gods above that was weird and unsettling and just… yeah), and a really… really… fucking tall mirialan.
Ilar'jer (who the hell gave a kid a name like that? ash arrow?) took the lead, long legs covering the corridor quickly. "I'll get the generators. Fathi, I'll need your backup."
"I'll go port, clear out the resistance there." Jen spoke, clipped Imperial accent startling Lish'an. "If you'd cover my back?"
"It'd be a pleasure, Jen." Lish'an inhaled, then "Let's move!"
The four split into two, going their separate ways.
Blaster pistol and rifle held in respective hands, the pureblood and twi'lek make their way down, leapfrogging corridors and watching one another's backs. "Go high, Jen. I gotta thermal det with their names written all over it."
Technically they don't have names. Technically. Lish makes a living off those. In this case, she was making scrap out of droids. Close enough.
"Get this blast door shut! That shield won't hold forever."
"We can't leave them in there !"
"We have to hold this ground. We have our job… they have theirs."
Ouch. Cold. "Hey, hey you, let us in there." A grenade bounced in blue fingers, "Seal the blast doors when both me and Red there get back out."
"Would it kill you to at least use half of my real name?"
"You still answered to it, didn't ya?" Lish'an shrugged, shouldering past the two arguing soldiers (were they still arguing behind her? she wondered) and ducking through the doorway. "Just get these guys outta here before it gets worse."
The Knight and The Lover
Ilar is a blur of motion, twin violet blades scything through the boarders-all droids, partially to Fathi's regret.
Fathi is the silent movement behind Ilar, the Force bending to her will and shielding both her and Ilar from blasterfire. It allowed Ilar to remain fully focused on the offensive, and it struck fear into their foes… or rather, it would, had their foes not been mere droids.
Ah well. Striking awe into the hearts of their allies would have to do.
"The generators are clear, Marr."
Their comms hissed, crackling with a signal that's not quite coming through. "-airlock. Repeat, droids have-in the hull-starting t-docking clamps-nd-air-"
Fathi brought a hand up, tapping the earpiece worn to coordinate with the rest of the group. "Did anyone else get a better read on that message?"
"Our transports have been sealed to the ship. If we do not free them, we all go down with the ship." Drayan's firm voice answered, fuzzy through the interference, but understandable. "I'll get them free. Keep the generators from being overrun."
"Copy that. Fathi out."
"Keep the generators safe, huh? Easy." Ah, there it is. An almost vicious gleam in dark eyes (Fathi could swear they'd gone golden some months ago, but yet there they were, as normal).
The Warrior
Drayan sprinted, her footsteps steady even with the ship shaking beneath her. A conduit blows behind her, washing heat over her back.
Docking level. Docking level.
She takes the stairs two at a time, not trusting the lifts when the ship was barely holding together as it was. Lightsaber made short work of debris in her path, edges still burning white-orange as she leapt through.
Another explosion rocked the ship, momentarily rocking the warrior's balance; and rather than fight to regain it, Drayan throws herself into a roll, catapulting back into motion.
Gloved hand slaps the panel as she darts past, entire posture shifting to slow. She can see the viewport-the ships and their crews beyond.
"The docking clamps are loose. Quinn, coordinate everyone. Try to get as many people out as possible."
The Fury breaks free first, Vette at the helm, Quinn strapped into the co-pilot's seat as he opens a comms channel to the handful of other ships. "Fury hailing the Alliance, please check in."
Marr's voice broke through, overriding Drayan's feed of the external coordination. "The enemy has breached the engineering deck in search of the primary generators. Meet me there."
A grim smile made its way onto Drayan's face as she turned from the viewport. "Saig, meet me in Engineering with Marr. Ilar, Fathi, be ready; we're coming in hot."
"I hope you don't mind company-it's getting pretty spacey over aft." Lish'an chimed in.
The Failure
If there was one thing in the world Jen hated, it was having to deal with a practical army of droids. Neither hers nor Lish'an's stealth belts could get them past, and they had to resort to fighting them. Unfortunate that the two of them weren't wearing envirosuits, either-she would much rather blow a section of the hull out and let space deal with the damned things.
"Lish'an. Do you have any more of your smoke grenades?"
"Mmm, a couple. Why, you think we can use 'em on the last chunk o' droids here?"
"Yes. Pass them over."
"You take all the fun outta things, Red."
"I'd rather we make it out in one piece."
Surprisingly enough, the twi'lek doesn't grumble any further as a pair of smoke grenades are palmed over to the pureblood. Bouncing one in her palm experimentally, Jen touched her stealth belt. "Let's go."
The first corner they turned brought them nearly face to face with patrolling skytroopers. There was no avoiding this; Jen pocketed the smoke grenade and lunged forward, her stealth generator shutting down mid-flight. Before either droid raised their weapon to firing position, Jen had jammed her knife into the delicate internals of one, and Lish'an was beating the other to the ground with the butt of her scattergun.
The scattergun shot echoed unnaturally loud with nothing but a creaking ship echoing in their ears. The alarms had shut down in this section, as had the air circulation.
"We should probably get a move on, Red. It's too quiet here; got a bad feeling about it."
Lish'an was right. "The stealth belts are going to hamper our progress. Let's just deal with the skytroopers as we cross their paths."
"Fine by me. Their armor doesn't hold up too well to scattergun pellets." The smuggler grinned, cradling the weapon in her arms as if it were a baby (a mannerism no doubt learned from her husband, Jen guessed).
By the time they reached the main generators, there were no more skytroopers barring paths… but the ship was beginning to fragment.
"Look, Marr. We can get the shields back up, but hell if they aren't going back down again in a handful of seconds. Look at the generator; it's falling apart!"
"Not to mention the hyperdrive's shot." Jen added, grimacing at her choice in words. Lish'an was rubbing off on her. Again.
Comms sputter to life on a nearby console. "Enemies on the bridge! I repeat, enemies on th-"
Static.
"There are rudimentary backup controls here," Marr begins, "but the enemy ships have us surrounded. There are few options left to us."
Lish'an reached up, flicking an array of switches. "All hands, abandon ship. I repeat, all hands, abandon ship." Her voice was tinny over the remaining loudspeakers, but the message was clear. "That means us too. Red, Ilar, Fathi, we need to find the others. Corso can catch pods off the safe side of the ship."
The Hunter
"Käle here. Dan's holding the path from engineering open and safe. But you guys need to hurry-she's strainin' here." She wasn't so worried about the explosive decompression; her beskar'gam was airtight and rated for a good chunk of time in vacuum. But the rest of the committee? Not so much. Her oldest sister, Dan, was in robes, and Senkä's battle armor wasn't rated for vacuum.
Nystaha's voice came over the comms, the soldier having been quiet until now. "I've got the pods clear and ready to go. They're not launching without a full load of people, but the ship's coming apart faster than people are making it down here."
"Dray, Saigra, and Marr are holding the generators. They'll be coming once they lock in a course for the enemy fleet."
"For a smuggler, you're awfully optimistic."
"C'mon, Red, I get my hopes destroyed on a daily basis. A girl's gotta cope."
Käle blinked, pinpointing positions through her HUD, tracking the remaining crewmembers as they checked in, tracking the multi-faction alliance of theirs.
"Pod one is away!"
Käle blinked again, adding the pod transponders to her tracking. "And pod one's been swept up by one of ours."
Cheers blanket the comms for a moment, and the ship shakes underneath them as it accelerates toward the enemy fleet.
"Jen checking in; the group from the generators-minus Dray, Marr, and Saig-have made it to the pods."
"Pods two and three away!"
"Sen, go. Dan can hold the ship for a few more minutes. I'll take the last pod with the Major."
"Käle-"
"Go, Sen!"
"Pod four away!"
"Pods two and three have made it to safety."
Käle kept her face impassive, even hidden behind the emotionless visor as it was. She'd ordered one sister to the escape pods, and she felt like she was condemning the other one.
Senkä swept past, refusing to so much as look at Käle. And she deserved that.
Deserved it for being pragmatic.
"Pod five away!"
"Fury's jumping! Bay is at capacity and they're taking fire. Pod five's been hit. Transponder's out; I can't track them." It's almost an information overload, but this is where Käle feels alive. Each and every mark on the map lets her coordinate the evacuation. "XS Freighter jumping as well, lost a sublight nacelle and can't risk the shields taking any more hits."
"Pod six away!"
"That's the surviving crew. Nys, take pod seven, I'll meet you there. Dan, Marr, Drayan, Saigra, you need to hurry. Pods eight through ten, and pod fifteen, are still intact. See you on the flip side. Käle out."
She almost dismisses the HUD, decides against it. Better to keep an eye on who was left as she turned, shoving off the bulkhead as the artigrav fails completely.
She carefully kicks off the jetpack, burning just enough fuel to boost her down the fragmenting corridor to the escape pods (she can see other corridors through the bulkheads now and it makes her nervous).
Käle cuts the jets as she swings around the corner, redirecting her momentum to launch herself into the waiting escape pod.
"Pod seven at capacity, launching."
The Inquisitor
The Imperial flagship doesn't make it to the attacking fleet.
Dan'ielle screams, dimly aware that it was, in fact, her voice, her will crumbling under the sheer effort it was taking to keep the ship from falling in two. Fuel tanks detonate, shaking the structure to the core, setting off a series of micro explosions that run through the weakest points in the bulkheads.
"Lady Callaway, we're on our way, get ready to run!"
She doesn't answer. Can't spare the focus to answer. The ship is beginning to separate despite all her efforts, despite her strength in the Force.
A door slams shut in front of her, sealing the section of corridor off from the rest of the ship.
"We're across the gap. You can release your hold. We'll meet you at the pods."
Slowly, as if afraid her effort will snap back and flatten her if she lets go immediately, the Sith eases her Force grip on the fragmenting half of the ship-and the half they stand in shudders again as its skeleton is rent in two.
Dan exhaled, a breath she hadn't realized she'd drawn back in, nor held. Only then does she turn, reaching out to the Force with a weary mind, seeking both relief and the presences of her protege and said protege's company.
"I'm on my way."
The wreckage shuddered again, followed by the deafening screech of rendered durasteel.
"Fuck." The singular word sounded strange spoken in Drayan's clipped and pronounced Basic, but the inflection spoke nothing good. "The pods just sheared off."
Dan grimaced. The Empire would lose two of their Council members and their Empire's Wrath if they went down with the ship. Unfortunately, unless they could get into one of the attacking ships (very unlikely), that was to be the case. "Get the rest of the ships out if they haven't jumped. Anything small enough to get us out of here's already taken too many hits."
Lish'an's freighter, the Furies, even Käle's junk heap, all of them jumped already.
"And hope that help will make it here before we lose what little life support we have left."
A/N:
I'm hoping that the voices are distinct enough to pick out. This is the first time I'm going after something this sizable in scale, and in part due to the fact that I can't have my legacy work together in-game.
