Please note, this is a piece of fanfiction and I do not own any rights to the Star Wars universe.

CELL 66

A Star

Wars Story

The Republic has fallen...

Times are dark, as the Emperor

extends his dominion over the powerless

Senate. Unchecked, Imperial Forces increase their

iron grasp across the planets of the inner and outer rim.

Clone trooper Six, has deserted from the Imperial Army, desperate to make

amends for killing a Jedi Master under Order 66. With a ship, the Kraken, he has built

up a small cell of freedom fighters. A band of outcasts displaced from their homes by the

ravages of the Empire and with one common, burning goal: to stop the Emperors reign of terror

at any cost...

Kraken

Six sat back and surveyed his crew, heads bent over the plans for their next mission. There were maps and diagrams displayed on a multitude of data screens splayed across the round table and they were all talking excitedly, especially young Circuit. He was a key player for once and was making the most of his new-found importance. Usually the other crew members were cursing him for some technical glitch with their mostly ancient equipment, when it was only down to his genius that it worked at all. Now Six had bought him a brand-new toy - with the last of their credits - and Kit was the centre of attention, happily explaining what he needed to make the whole plan work.

'So, Khel, you'll micro jump us in next to our target, get us as close as we can to make the uplink faster. At top speed my simulations show its gonna take me 20 seconds to connect, 45 seconds to override their security protocols and then 30 seconds to slave them to our nav computer. Be ready to jump as soon as I give the word.

Mankhel was scowling, he clearly didn't like the idea of their beloved ship, the Mon Calamari light freighter Kraken, taking a beating for that long. But all he volunteered was ' I can get you close enough to reach out and kiss the cargo kid don't you worry 'bout that - you just make sure ya hustle.'

Six smiled to himself. He liked the taciturn Coruscant native. As a clone, Six hadn't been equipped to deal with social niceties and chit chat, but Khel seemed to labour under the same difficulties, and he hadn't been born and raised in a lab.

It was Kits turn to scowl, he hated being reminded of his youth and implied inexperience, especially as he wasn't actually the youngest. That dubious honour fell to Star, their Twi'lek engineer. She really was young, but something about her made the rest of the crew treat her with respect, while they all ribbed him constantly about being wet behind the ears, a street rat, and many other terms of 'endearment'.

Inez stepped in quickly to smooth things over. Six' second in command and frequent peacemaker, she excelled at the social skills Six baulked at. Theirs was a volatile but loyal and driven crew. They needed a firm hand and clear, unifying direction, which Six provided in abundance, but they also needed someone who could deal with the day to day dramas of a lot of...well, quite frankly, hotheads; who were generally either being confined in a close space for long periods, or being shot at, or both. Sometimes Inez felt like there wasn't much in between.

'Kit, honey, how long would it take to scan the freighter to make sure we get one hauling fuel?'

Circuit glanced at Six and Inez. 'I can probably sweep one in about a minute at long range without them picking up on it or us. But if they already have their jump laid in they won't be around long enough for me to complete the slaving process...it's pretty close as it is.'

'Too risky' announced Six decisively. The intel I was sent said fuel and parts, so they should all be carrying stuff we can sell. So, we jump straight in. As for selecting the best placed ship-'

'-we should pick the one that gives us the most cover from the guard ships, and that might mean getting in the middle of all the freighters so the gunners can't get a clear shot.' interrupted Xinn, Kehls co-pilot.

Six nodded, impressed. He had been trying to impress the importance of strategy, into all his people, and the newest addition to his crew was clearly taking it all on board. Xinn rightly looked pleased with herself. A compliment, even a nod, from Six was hard won, and it was an achievement in itself to get a word in edge ways sometimes with her rowdy new crewmates. They took some getting used to, but they were her kind of people. People who would do anything to destroy the Empire. The way the Empire ruthlessly destroyed her family back home on Tatooine.

'Ok', agreed Kit, catching Six' nod and feeling his way forward. 'Kehl will try and jump into the middle, get up close to one'.

'What do you mean try, boy?'

Kit wisely ignored the bait and for once steered clear of an argument. 'Kehl will micro-jump us into the middle, but by the time the link is made, the other ships will have had time to manoeuvre away to give the gunners line of sight so we will be taking some fire.'

Star cleared her throat and everyone paused for the shy Twilek girl to speak. 'If you can figure which side will be 'out' I can shift the best of our armour plating to that side. Give us a bit longer under the barrage if the shields fail.'

Xinn nodded, 'and I can angle the shields before we jump too, so I can bring them up the instant we emerge.'

'Ok' nodded Kit, mentally incorporating these final details. 'So Xinn you're on shields. Kehl, as soon as we are in position, make the final adjustments to the coordinates then be ready to jump when I say the word - and with this programme, the cargo ship will follow. Star be ready for emergency repairs in case we take a bad hit- by the way, how long do you need to move the shield plating around?'

'Only about three hours if Danel and Vailian can help me with the heavy lifting.' Two laid-back looking humans who were sat silently listening nodded curtly, just once.

'Great' announced Kit, without looking up for their consent - it went without saying: they might be rather mysterious, preferring to spend a lot of their time alone, but the tiny Twilek girl was the chink in their armour, and like the rest of the crew they would do anything for her. 'Well by my calculations we need to leave in the next three hours to be sure of getting there in time, so that's fine. Kehl, can you have us ready to go in 3 hours?'

The pilot nodded, not to be out-taciturned by the two soldiers.

Six stood up, it was time to wrap things up. 'Sounds like a plan. Good job Kit, Danel, Vailian, you two can fight it out over the top and bottom gun turrets. Let's get going people. Inez, I want you on scanners during the mission, keep everyone posted on what's happening around us. I'll make the tea and wipe everyone's fevered brow I guess.'

That was Six' way of breaking up the meeting. Everyone drifted away to get on with their prep work. Inez sighed, she could see Kit mentally kicking himself. To miss just one piece of the jigsaw, and to forget to assign tasks to everyone would be very frustrating for him when he so wanted to earn the crews respect and stop the constant ribbings. 'Good job Kit, well done' she said as he went past, making sure she was loud enough for everyone to hear. The rest of the crew took the hint and slapped him on the back and congratulated him each in their own way. He looked somewhat mollified, but she knew it was Six' praise that he really wanted. Just like the rest of them.

Six. He was an enigma to the crew, but not so much to her. He thought he was less of a person because he was 'only' a clone, but he couldn't be more wrong. He had a heart the size of an ocean - he had rescued all these waifs and strays and turned them into a force for good. They were doing their bit to win against the Empire, and they were making a difference. He was a hero if he could only see that. Still, when it came to missions on board the ship he had no useful skills and she wished he would stick to making the tea. But he wouldn't, he would be in the thick of things shouting unneeded advice and instruction. Everyone would take comfort from his presence and ignore him, and maybe shout for tea - that would never come.

His place was on the ground, that's where he excelled. And with Danel and Vailian at his side he could pull off missions that just sometimes gave him a thrill close to that of running with the Jedi in the old Republic days. He missed those days deeply, but the guys had given him back the only joy left in his life. Inez didn't pretend to understand those two, but she would forever be grateful to them. The cause had given Six something to hang on to in the darkness, a purpose; but Dan and Vail gave him a contentment, a little joy in the endless hardship of their lives.

Speaking of which she had better run a full scanner diagnostic before they jumped. They couldn't afford for anything to go wrong. This was a big mission for them as a crew. Six had a contact who gave them all their assignments, someone imaginatively known as: Contact. This time he or she had given them something out of the ordinary. Usually they would be sent to some downtrodden planet for a search and recruit task: finding small local pockets of resistance and establishing their intentions. If those intentions were to rid the planet of the imps for good, they would help them to set up as a Resistance Cell with a Contact of their own. It was a highly dangerous task, a race to find the group before the imps did. But this mission - this was danger of a different kind.

She programmed the diagnostic almost on autopilot as she reflected on the task in front of them. Contact had given them intel on an Imperial pipeline of ships taking supplies to a small outpost rumoured to be designing radical new one-man fighter ships. The base was top secret and its convoys said to be small so as not to attract attention - but its cargo would be highly valuable - things their little cell could use - fuel and high tech ship parts such as shields and weapons. If they could capture just one ship it could boost their attack, defence and infiltration capabilities exponentially while also giving them cargo to sell and generate some credits.

Inez had the feeling the generating credits was the main point of the mission, even more than damaging the imp fleet in some way. The last mission they had been asked to do, they had had to refuse. Six never liked to do that, but he had to feed his crew and fuel the ship, pay docking fees and in short pay for all the little things you needed just to survive. So sometimes they had to work to earn funds. They carried out their covert work under the fake ID Shadow Dancer, but their legit work was carried out as the cargo hauler Kraken. This mission was obviously Contact providing a way to get some funds, so they didn't have to haul cargo for a while. They would be at his or her beck and call – and that was fair enough - it was what they were all here for. The fledgling resistance was losing too many potential allies to the Empire.

But she knew Six would have more immediate concerns: whereas they usually operated stealthily, under the Imperial radar, this was a very visible task. Once this task was done they would need to pay for new transponder codes and they would be Shadow Dancer no more. That meant more expense. This mission had better be lucrative. They had spent every credit they owned on the Slave tech, so if the whole thing back-fired they wouldn't be available to go out recruiting for a very long time….

With a ping Inez realised her dignostic was done, all scanners passive and active were fully operational. She glanced around the cockpit. Kehl had just finished up with the astrogation and was heading out to help Star. Xinn was staring thoughtfully at the shield controls. She gave it a thump - always the first option on this ship, even before turn it off and turn it on again - and frowned.

'You want me to get Kit?' offered Inez. Xinn began to nod and then shook her head vigorously. ' I don't want to speak to soon, but I think it might be working...'

Inez nodded and left the slender co-pilot to her task. She wanted to go out and help Star as well, or at least Vailian. Vail never seemed to notice her no matter what she did. But she noticed him. A lot.

Many hands make light work, and well within the three hour limit, the crew of the Kraken were ready. Kehl took the ship up through the atmosphere of Homestead, the isolated, low tech little planet they regularly hid out on. Once they achieved orbit, Xinn made her final adjustments to the astronav computer and the dots of lights in front of them blurred into the beauty of hyperspace.

Kits plan involved them hanging out on the edge of the system and waiting for the convoy to emerge from hyperspace. The combination of taking cover in the edges of the local asteroid field and going to low-power would render them invisible to the imp convoy when it arrived.

As with all the best laid plans, it seemed to start just great. They emerged in the outer reaches of the system and nestled up against a large rock on the edge of the asteroid belt. Inez focused their scanners towards the wider area above the lifeless rock at the centre of the system while Kehl powered down. Then they settled in to wait. The convoy was due to arrive in about thirty minutes.

Kehl and Xinn sat patiently in their bucket seats up front, Kehl ready to micro jump and Xinn ready to bring up the shields when he did. Inez sat to the rear of the cockpit checking the scanner status. Dan and Vail were in their gun turrets, no doubt dozing, stress-free as usual. There was no sign of Star, she would be scurrying around in engineering somewhere, doing her thing. Only Six and Kit seemed wired and restless, perched in the uncomfortable chairs added by Kehl not long after joining Six and Inez on the Kraken. No one was under any illusion that his main reason to do so wasn't to keep other crew members from breathing down his neck when he was trying to concentrate. They made the cockpit pretty cramped, but no one had room to pace any more- which was something that Six was particularly prone to and Kehl particularly hated.

' I sure could use some te-' but Inez words were cut short as to everyone's' astonishment, the imp convoy of six freighters and six gun ships jumped in - twenty nine minutes early. To their even greater astonishment, micro seconds later twelve gun ships flashed into being, their distinctive markings making them instantly recognisable as members of Crimson Dawn, the notorious band of smugglers, gun runners and general criminals. They surrounded the little convoy in a flash and immediately opened fire on the Imperial gun ships.

Firestorm

The twelve Crimson Dawn Ships hung in space, unleashing a hail of fire on the imp convoy.

'Noooo' wailed Kit showing all the youth and inexperience he had been trying so hard to cover up. 'What's happening? What do we do?'

The rest of the crew looked pointedly at the firestorm on screen. The imps were almost invisible through the barrage of ordinance battering their shields. One ship was listing to one side and then exploded spectacularly, further reducing visibility. Nothing the beleaguered imps managed to return seemed to have any affect on the Crimson Dawn ships, who closed on them relentlessly. This was clearly not the time for the Kraken to wade in.

Six was furious. 'Son of a bantha! How in the swamp of Dathomir did Crimson Dawn find out about this?' Despite the cramped quarters, he was on his feet. 'Kit, there's nothing we can do! Nothing at all – we cant afford to make enemies of them.' Now the imps know their secret base is not so secret, its over, we are done here. ... How did they know?' His question lingered in the air, but there were no answers to be had. Everyone was processing the ramifications: they had no credits and now, they had no cargo to appropriate.

The team watched the battle on screen in silence, even Star and the brothers crept in to watch. It didn't take long for the pirates to overcome the smaller imp convoy. They just kept up their relentless barrage until the guard ships were dead in the water. Krakens scanners picked up multiple life boats being deployed and those few that weren't picked off by the attack ships quickly zipped into hyperspace and safety. None came their way, trying to make the relative safety of the asteroid belt, and the Shadow Dancer remained unseen.

Within seconds the pirates also winked out of existence leaving a hole where the six cargo boats had been and just the shells of five of the six attack ships floating brokenly through space, their companion completely obliterated.

'Dammit' shouted Kit, who had had the presence of mind to time the whole episode. 'They were using a slave programme just like mine - but we would have been faster.'

'Yes but they were slaving six ships and we were slaving one' pointed out Xinn rather dampeningly. Kit looked furious and opened his month to retaliate, but a quelling look from Six shut him up abruptly. Who was fastest wasn't a concern right now.

With all the precious cargo boats gone and the remaining ships dead in space, Six felt there was nothing to be gained from hanging around. 'Prepare to jump. Set a course for Corellia, see if we can pick up a cargo to haul. It won't be long before the imps get here to find out where their convoy went, and we want to be long gone'

In silence Kehl and Xinn started the calculations.

'Wait' shouted Kit suddenly. He had been fiddling with his data pad since the pirates had jumped. 'One of the guard ships isn't like the others...'

'And?' demanded Six mid-stride as he headed out of the cockpit, presumably to go to his berth and find something to kick.

'It's a very well-armed personal cruiser, The Vortex'. The life pods are all gone but the ship is top of the range, we may be able to strip it for weapons, ordinance, whatever.'

Six - and the rest of the crew - perked up immediately. 'What are we waiting for? Kehl, lay in a course'

Kehl was already on it, but he kept the approach cautious, ready to micro-jump at any sudden movements.

Inez started an active scan - after all there was no one left to pick up their signal, and if there was - well she needed to know. She frowned a little over the readings. ' Hmmm, what a shame to abandon such a nice ship – hang on - the engine's breached and it won't be too long before she blows. Star, have a look at the readings, I'm sending them to your datapad now - how long would you give the engine before it reaches critical?'

The Twilek engineer peered at the screen and tapped a few icons. 'Thirty minutes tops boss'.

Six didn't hesitate; the risk of the ship blowing was high in the extreme, the risk of the imps arriving before they made their escape was equally likely - but they really really needed to come away from this with some credits. He didn't see that he had any choice if they wanted to carry on with the mission.

'Lets do this people.'

Shadows

Lieutenant Mattesta beckoned Admiral Lockee over. 'Shadow has made contact'. He opened a channel and a distorted, genderless voice echoed across the control room.

'Embarking on deep space mission to acquire supplies from an imperial convoy. May need extraction if mission failure results in capture. If we make it out alive will report in two days.'

The Admiral looked thoughtful. 'Been off radar for three weeks and now this? Information, but hardly enlightening. Their previous missions have been planetside, this is new. Is this the mistake that finally leads us to Contact? Alert me as soon as Shadow reports in again – or if we haven't heard anything in two days... No...wait... '

The Lieutenant waited impatiently but without fidgeting; he was well trained, and he had been so lucky to get this assignment ahead of hundreds of others. The Admiral was a stickler for discipline, so he volunteered nothing, letting Lockee think in silence.

The Admirals expression was one of cunning, which was why Mattesta hated him and was fascinated by him in equal measure. He trusted Lockee about as far as he could throw him. And as he was a rather portly man...

'Shadow always likes to be one step ahead of me, delivering the bare minimum of information to meet the terms of our little agreement. I think we should try and get one step ahead for a change… I want the team analysing every attack on the fleet in deep space from now for the next 48 hours. Anyone who finds the Shadow Dancer and what they have been up to, earns immediate promotion for you and them.'

Mattesta nodded once and exited the room quickly, fired up to go and motivate his team. He knew this job could be a fast track to a command of his own, and now it seemed his career could take off even quicker than he had dared to dream. They just needed to find that ship. Not easy in the vastness of space, but not impossible either. They knew that the Shadow Dancer was coming to them, they just needed to use that knowledge to their advantage. After all, he could be wily too. And though he didn't know it, that was why Lockee hated him and wanted him on his team in equal measure as well.

Next Chapter - The crew find a lot more than they bargained for on the not-so-completely-deserted Vortex...

Thank you so sincerely to everyone who has followed and favourite-ed and reviewed, I really and truly appreciate you taking the time to read this and let me know what you think, and also for taking the time to put your faith in these new characters and read on past chapter 1!