STAR WARS

Incursion

It has been twenty-two years since the Empire secured its hold on the galaxy by overthrowing the Old Republic and establishing Palpatine as the Imperial monarch. It has been two years since the Rebel Alliance destroyed the Empire's greatest weapon: the Death Star, and proved to the galaxy that the Rebellion was a legitimate threat to the Imperial regime.

Palpatine is now doing everything in his power to sway this belief, but the idea has already grabbed a strong foothold in the minds of some of the galaxy's most powerful and influential people. Many of these new supporters are supplying the Rebels with much-needed weapons and medical help, others are joining the Alliance, and yet others are brave enough to create their own factions. One of these few includes Tyber Zann, founder of the Zann Consortium. Granted the Consortium is a criminal organization, but they are still working hard to rid the galaxy of the Imperial menace.

In the deep Outer Rim Territories the Consortium works desperately to acquire new allies and bring more systems into their fledgling fold . . . .

The green and brown jungle world of Kowak loomed over its small gray moon like a large, spherical monster devouring its prey from above. The moon lay just on the horizon line of its primary planet sitting coolly within the dead of space. This silence was suddenly disrupted by the roar of ion sub-light engines. The strident drives belonged to the hind side of an elongated Tartan-class patrol cruiser blazing at full speed toward the bleak moon. Venomous green laser blasts licked by the hull of the cruiser as the Imperial stardestroyer pursuing it opened fire.

The blasts impacted on the cruiser's shields as flashing bursts of discharged energy causing the crew and cargo inside to be jostled about as if the small ship were in the middle of a violent groundquake. Blast after blast exploded on the sides of the Tartan cruiseras it struggled to fight back, doing little-to-no damage to the oncoming stardestroyer with its small laser cannons.

If only the cruiser could make it to the far side of the moon it would be safe. The hidden Consortium outpost there would have more than enough firepower to at least get the Imperials off the ship's tail.

Within the small cruiser, on the command bridge, was Calibop Captain Mylin Vash. His large hands clasped the backs of the navigation officers' chairs as he struggled against the rumbling hull to stay erect.

"Increase power to the main drives, reroute the energy converters to boost the shields!"

A flurry of laser blasts exploded a sensor relay on the ships port side sending the flaming dish hurling into deep space and rocking the cruiser furiously once more.

Mylin struggled to keep himself upright, using the chairs for balance.

"We just lost communications," one of the navigation officers yelled.

"Transfer power from that system through the main conduits, we need those shields at maximum output for as long as possible."

The small cruiser was so close to safety. Kowak's moon nearly covered the entire view port now and was still growing as the helmsman pulled the speeding ship's nose up and above the moon's horizon. He slowly pulled back the lateral controls sending the ship into a slow dip to the starboard side.

Mylin braced against inertia as the Tartan sharply veered to the right side of the moon. The readouts on the consoles spun wildly and alarms screamed as gravitational forces began to tear the bulkheads apart and centrifugal force pulled the small ship to the outside of the moon's gravity field.

"Ease out of it," Mylin directed from behind a barred beak.

The officer removed his hand from the laterals and let the cruiser tip back to a comfortable upright position. However the extreme maneuver was not enough, the stardestroyer was still right on the ship's tail blasting away at her vital systems.

Another powerful turbolaser blast exploded just in front of the cruiser's drive pods sending a pulse of shimmering blue gases rapidly expanding away from the ship's hull.

"We just lost hyperdrive!"

"Well," Mylin replied tenuously, "no turning back now."

Another blast shook the cruiser just as the Consortium supply post came into view over the horizon.

"There it is," the towering Calibop exclaimed, "drives to maximum."

"Captain, the scanners show that the station's planetary ray shields are active. We won't be able to dock until their down."

Mylin, reaching over the navigation officer's shoulder, placed a prehensile feather on the comm button and flipped a signal switch targeting the supply post's relay, "This is Consortium Captain Mylin Vash of the Tartan supply ship Transgression to Consortium Outpost 992-44 requesting immediate deactivation of the shield generators. We are being pursued by Imperial forces -"

"Captain, our communications are down. We won't be able to alert the station to our approach until the relay is fixed."

Mylin sighed in frustration as he debated what to do so that the small ship's chances of being blasted to Mustafar could be slightly decreased.

"All right, helm."

"Yes, Captain"

"Get back to communications. See if you can't get that relay up and running."

"Right," the helmsman replied as he jumped from his seat and headed off of the bridge.

Mylin quickly sat down, trying not to be thrown to the ground as he struggled against another turbolaser barrage. He skillfully adjusted the controls and calibrated the inertia capacitors to supply optimum performance for the shields, "Here we go," he said with a slight smile as he yanked the nose of the ship to the side of the ray shield dome.

On the ship's port side the helmsman was busy fighting the interface controls of the communications system with a hydrospanner and fusion cutter. Sparks exploded from various consoles and steam jetted out of unsecured pipelines. A stream of oil spayed across the man's dark green coveralls as he shoved a plasma coil into a binary conduit. Once the unit was securely attached by the fusion cutter he reached up and squeezed down on a lever and the sensor station glowed a bright blue, humming with a methodic activation tone. The helmsman pulled off his goggles and rushed over to the intercom, "Mylin, it's up but you have limited connectivity. If you're going to get a hold of them you have to do it now."

"Great job," the Captain replied from the bridge, "get back up here, the stardestroyer has redirected attention to the station."

Mylin pulled the Transgression around to face the battle at hand. The Imperial starship was now pumping its cannons onto the red-orange shield of Station 44. However the single stardestroyer was no match. The station's some 24 ion cannons and 16 turbolaser batteries swathed the triangular battleship in crimson plasma, and within minutes the ship was on the run, headed out of the system.

Mylin breathed a sigh of relief as the drives of the stardestroyer flashed blue in the far distance and the menacing ship fled into hyperspace.