Hello, hello, I won't make a long introduction here. This story came about because of a somewhat long-running roleplay between me and some friends. I always wanted to make something of a story out of it. I don't own Star Wars, original or expanded universe. Any comments or questions are appreciated.
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…
STAR
WARS
Emperor's Retribution
It is a time of relative peace for the galaxy. Emperor Palpatine has been vanquished for good, and the Empire has been extremely reduced in size and power. The New Republic continues the fight against the remnants of the Empire, as well as efforts to rebuild after years of long, arduous warfare.
As the galaxy heals from the terrible wounds of the Empire's reign, a potential problem has been identified by New Republic Intelligence agents. This problem, if left unchecked, could destabilize the galaxy once again.
In a remote corner of the galaxy, an unsuspecting Jedi Knight is about to cross paths with these vessels. His actions will spell salvation or doom for the galaxy…
Soundlessly drifting through the vacuum, engine nacelles burning a soft, blue glow, the Imperial Star Destroyer Avenger loomed above the dying world below. Flickers of light drifted about the massive ship, groups of fighters held a constant watch for aggressors as three shuttles glided into the void, making the short trip from the Imperial warship to the more rounded, serene herdship Far Wanderer. Fires burned along sections of the ship, where laser cannons had once protected it from pirates or vandals. The three shuttles drifting toward the main docking area made clear that there was no more fight in the ship, as they landed unchallenged, with stormtroopers quickly disembarking in order to occupy the Ithorian ship.
Aboard the bridge of the Avenger, the crew worked diligently, a watchful eye on sensors and incoming transmissions from the fighters in space, and the troopers on the herdship. With electrical interference from the nebula encroaching on the system, it had been difficult to find the Ithorians, yet a quick sweep through the system with the Destroyer's fighter group had given them the location of the Ithorians' project.
Epsilon-238B, as the planet below had been named by the stellar survey team some two years ago, slowly rotated within the glow of its star's light. Life had blossomed on the planet, giving rise to mountains of jungles, inhabited by all sorts of flora and fauna. Unfortunately, the system which Epsilon-238B lay in was in the path of a highly radioactive nebula, the remains of some unnamed star that had burned out long ago. The presence of the nebula had begun affecting the world, upsetting the delicate balance of nature, and threatening to doom everything within some few years.
The Ithorians of the Far Wanderer had come to the assistance of the endangered plants and animals, seeking to transplant them to other worlds, so they might live on, instead of perish as their homeworld currently was. The effort was well underway, with many creatures taken from the world and ready for transport. The stormtroopers currently occupying the herdship, however, had put a halt to that effort.
"Sir, Beta Company has just made their landing. Commander Rathburn reports that the herdship is now under complete control. The Ithorians have been rounded up, though there has been some resistance." Came the voice of the Destroyer's First Officer as he approached the Captain. Continuing to stare out through the large viewports afforded by the bridge, Captain Strang simply nodded in acceptance of the report. "He reports to be ready for the next step of the operation."
Turning about, the graying man moved back down the bridge, walking with a slight limp in his right leg toward the communications station of the bridge. "Excellent, they're ahead of schedule. Continue jamming all other signals until we've completed our mission." He replied, coming to a stop just as a half meter hologram of the officer aboard the Ithorian vessel flickered into existence from the communications terminal.
With a smug grin, the older man acknowledged the salute of the commander before speaking. "Very good work, Commander. I'll make a note in my report about your quick work. Is the vessel ready to jump?"
"The ship is ready, sir, though the hammerheads are still giving us a bit of resistance."
Captain Strang nodded his understanding, his slight grin about a job well done turning slightly sour. "Then we will give them a reason to cooperate, Commander. There is much you can force aliens to do, given the proper leverage. I want to talk to whichever of them was in charge of the ship before."
Quickly, the officer in the hologram bowed his head in acknowledgement, turning out of frame of the hologram before it was expanded to include two other forms; one a tall Ithorian in simple robes which touched the ground, as well as a TC protocol droid. As the alien seemed to realize that attention was on the pair, a low series of guttural notes sounded from its neck, speaking in the Ithorian language, which the droid promptly translated. "Priestess Ta Onota wishes to know the reason behind these actions."
The Captain's orders were to speak with the Ithorian priest, and make sure they kept their herd under control while under Imperial control. Strang, however, wanted to make sure the meeting took place far away from the supposedly force-sensitive priestess. The rebels had shown many Imperial commanders what force-sensitives could do, and he hardly wanted to test how many of the rumors were true. "Your herd will not be harmed, so long as they cooperate. Your vessel will travel to a set of coordinates supplied by my officers on board. From there, you will receive instructions for how you will be of use to the Empire."
"The Priestess is still concerned of her people's safety." Replied the droid, after pausing to listen to the old Ithorian's rumblings. "The Empire has a history with her species, one she would not prefer to continue."
"I am aware of your traditions and laws, Priestess. I do assure you that none of them will be broken during your servitude. If you are unwilling, however, I promise they will all be broken by the end of the day. Particularly your 'Law of Life'."
The mention of her specie's law gave the old Priestess pause, staring at the captain through the holographic comm. array for a long moment before her eyes closed a moment. Speaking in low tones, the droid beside her was forced to lean in close to listen correctly before translating. "In all her years, she has never imagined that such a choice would rest squarely on her decision. She reluctantly agrees, but wishes to implore that her people on the surface are left to their work. The planet below is dying, and it would be a greater sin to allow its multitude of life to die with it."
Without batting an eye, Captain Strang nodded his head, a smirk drawing across his lips. "Very well. I don't care what your herd does with the beasts and the flowers. The officers aboard will take over for your crew. The workers on the ground are useless to us, and therefore are below my concern. Pray that you remain in my good graces, Priestess, or that will change quickly." With that, he reached past the ensign manning the communications terminal to terminate the transmission.
"If I may, sir, why leave the workers on the planet? Could we not load them into transports and put them on the herdship?"
His hesitant words told of the caution he took not to sound timid, though it was clear that Strang saw through the attempt. "It's simple logistics, Commander. Were we to send troops to the surface in order to round up the hammerheads, we would accomplish the goal, and be on our way. However, if one were left behind, one who managed to slip out into the surrounding wilderness, they could tell anyone who came next of what happened."
Stepping back down the bridge, that limp giving him an almost imperceptible break in his gait, the Captain moved toward another group of crewmembers. "Gunnery Officer, have your crews prepare to arm their systems and bombard the surface. I want nothing of the Ithorian facility standing, or anything within ten kilometers of the site, to remain in one piece." Hearing acknowledgement of the order, the Captain continued along the bridge until he stood at the viewport once more, staring out and watching as the Far Wanderer began to accelerate away from the planet.
"Our orders were specific, Commander. Leave no witnesses." Strang answered the unasked question as he saw his First Officer standing behind him once more. "If you are to have your own command one day, let this be a lesson to you. Always tie up loose ends, or else they may return as a noose around your neck."
The Commander simply nodded as he continued to watch the herdship leave, his misgivings about the operation still lingering in his mind.
A loud siren sounded in the cabin, followed by sounds of blaster fire and explosions being set off. Ocean blue eyes snapped open as a lightsaber of the same color ignited. Throwing himself out of bed, the fire-haired jedi somewhat poetically named Fieryone stood panting in the captain's cabin, immediately at alert for attack.
As he stood there panting lightly, adrenaline surging through his lightly dressed, lithe form, the native of Corellia glared down at the astromech droid rolling the rest of the way into the cabin, the sounds of violence switching off to be replaced with laughter.
"Oh good, you've fixed your vocabulator…" The human said as he relaxed his stance, extinguishing his saber before tossing it back onto the bed. His voice dripped with sarcasm he knew the little droid would ignore, wiping at the reactionary sweat that had begun to accumulate on his forehead. "Where did you find the transistor?" He asked, knowing he had hid that particular part in one of the food storage containers in the rear of his ship.
"Didn't." Answered the R3-series droid, retracting its third tread, allowing it to shuffle forward as its main manipulator arm extended forward, holding the audio package from an entertainment holoviewer for the human to see. The speaker had been cut open, and the internal parts had apparently been used to jerry-rig a vocabulator for the droid. "Had to rip this thing apart to find the right parts. I think it works better." With that, the droid dropped the parts onto the deck, letting them lay there as it extended its third tread again, quickly spinning about to move back into the main corridor.
"Hey, why don't you clean up your mess?" Fieryone asked, absently kicking the wrecked parts across the room after the droid.
"Oh, I'm sorry, do I look like a cleaning droid? Pick it up yourself. Besides, we've got twenty minutes before we drop out of hyperspace. I got better things to do." With that, the astromech disappeared around the corner, leaving the jedi to take a long, deep breath, and wonder why he had given the droid a more sophisticated vocabulator in the first place. Shaking his head, he quickly grabbed hold of the wrecked parts again, hoping he could fix them later and have a working holoviewer again.
Spending some few minutes on the morning routine, Fieryone stepped into the cockpit of the YT-1300 Flashfire and dropped into the pilot's chair. R3-B5, having already made its way there, was currently plugged into the ship with its interface arm, making short turns in the plug as it monitored the systems of the aging vessel. "The power converters for the engines are a little shaky again. Gonna have to realign them when we have time."
"We'll do that once we get back to New Republic space, Befive. An Ithorian ship is hardly the place to count on repairs." Easing back, the jedi rubbed at his eyes, trying to push the last remnants of sleep from his mind as he waited for the jump to Epsilon-238B to finish.
The Ithorians of the Far Wanderer had run into something of a problem early in their efforts to transplant as many species on the world as possible, in that they had not counted on just how strong the radiation was from the nebula that was creeping closer to the planet. The shields on their herdship were easily enough to withstand the radiation, while on the ground the workers were forced to work only when the planet's rotation placed the entire planet between their facility and the nebula, a window of only so many hours.
Having implored several beings and organizations for equipment that would allow large shield areas to be constructed on-world, Fieryone had responded fairly quickly, being told of the job by a friend of his old smuggling days. With the promise of repayment upon arrival, the jedi had purchased the equipment using more personal funds, and one or two loans, before loading up the Flashfire and jumping to the far end of the galaxy, in the Outer Rim beyond Endor, near the edge of the Unknown Regions.
After days of travel, the trip was finally over, and the red haired jedi felt he could relax for the moment. The Empire held no presence this far from the Imperial Remnant, and not even the Hutts ventured out this far. All he had to worry about was being able to repay what he had borrowed.
At the minute mark, Fieryone leaned forward in his seat, beginning to adjust the controls for when the ship reverted to realspace. Reaching for the controls of the hyperdrive motivator, his blue eyes began to blink slowly, a frown creasing his forehead as something tickled at the back of his mind. Hesitating for a half a second, he began running back through the controls, shutting power to all but the most crucial systems, lighting in the cockpit dimming to black as B5 twisted its dome to the side to look in the human's direction.
"What are you doing?" The droid began to ask, only to be interrupted halfway through his question as Fiery pushed the hyperdrive controls, dropping them from hyperspace nearly a half minute early. The endless blue tunnel that seemed to surround all hyperspace journeys began to dissipate and break apart, giving way to starlines which shrank to pinpoints of light, as the Epsilon-238B system leapt forward into view.
"Shut everything down. Engines, communications, the works. Keep life support and shields to a minimum, we still have the radiation to deal with." The jedi turned toward the viewport as they decelerated, the main drives powering down as the ship drifted through the vacuum. "Do you see what I see?" He asked, swearing under his breath as he stepped back to the forward viewport, staring at the distant planet.
The Ithorian herdship he had expected was there, almost where it should be in orbit above the facility. The vessel, however, was beginning to move away from that point, gliding away from the planet until it flickered out of existence, shooting off into hyperspace. Close to where it had been stationed, however, was the unmistakable white dagger shape of an Imperial Star Destroyer.
"I do… and I think we're spaced. Let's get out of here!"
"No, wait." Holding up his hand out of reflex to signal the droid to stop, Fieryone kept watch on the destroyer, staring hard for a long moment before relaxing. "I don't think they spotted us. The nebula is probably making their scanners do backflips."
Retracting the interface from the node, the droid shuffled closer to the viewport, tilting its treads to get a better look. "Good. I thought my sensors just weren't working." It said, using its optical sensors to get a closer look at the scene before the aging freighter. "You're right. I can see a few TIE patrols around it, but it looks like they're blind. The ship's not even moving our way."
As the droid spoke, the Star Destroyer's engines began to burn, propelling it through space as its sharply angled bow began to point down toward the planet. Even before it completed the maneuver, flashes of green light began to erupt from the hull, sending spears of energy down toward the planet. From the distance the freighter sat from the planet, there was no trace of the resulting destruction of the bombardment, but the Corellian could sense each and every turbolaser bolt impacting the surface.
Beings were dying down there, and it tore him up inside that there was nothing he could do. He could always power up and attack, but with squadrons of TIEs surrounding the ship, the only thing it would accomplish would be a quick death. "Make sure you're recording this. We can't help them now, but the New Republic will want to know there's still Imps stirring up trouble out here."
"Yeah, my first film production, and I'm the camera, great…" The droid mumbled as it complied, recording the video of the carnage to its main memory banks. "Makes you wonder, though, why go through the trouble of vaping the walking slugs? Don't get me wrong, better them than me, but it seems like a wasted effort."
"The Empire only does things like this to accomplish two things, Befive. Either one, they're punishing the Ithorians for something… or they're cleaning up the survivors of their attack." Fieryone continued to stare somberly at the scene for a long few minutes, flinching at every new salvo of fire that screamed toward the planet's surface. Whatever plants or animals were in the area were vaporized instantly, the surrounding brush catching fire, while the topsoil was turned to cracked glass.
It was nearly half an hour before the Star Destroyer's guns fell silent once more, and another half hour of flights of TIEs swooping down over the world, presumably to inspect the damage, before the mighty vessel recalled its fighter escort, turning to the same vector Far Wanderer had gone before leaping into oblivion after it.
Waiting several minutes on the off chance the Imperials returned, the Flashfire would power up once more, making its own sweep over the destruction before returning to its entrypoint into the system, leaping away into hyperspace, back toward the galactic core.
Once the jedi's vessel had jumped away, disappearing into the void, a flicker of motion began to ease forward. Black sliding along black, it would be nearly impossible to see, even if one were looking for it. Engine baffles began to glow dimly as the shape glided through vacuum. The inside of this ship was darkened, illuminated only by dimmed consoles, and dark red lights set above the small crew.
"Civilian vessel away, Captain. We are alone." Came a voice from the blackness, whispered in the slightly growled language as if a loud noise could bring down a fleet of ships upon them. "The settlement and research facility is gone, reading no life-forms within the Imperial's bombardment area." The feminine owner of the voice turned toward the commander of the vessel, ears twitching toward him as if waiting for his answer.
The captain was silent for a moment before finally nodding, leaning forward from the command chair and looked out the forward viewport, the outside of which was polarized to prevent any view of the interior of the black ship. "Compile a report for NavCom. Include the markings and registration of that civilian that had a look around. Helmsman, give us a pass over the affected area so we can scan for survivors one last time. If we don't find anything, take us on a randomized hyperspace vector for ten minutes, then take us back to base."
A series of quick acknowledgements sounded at the captain's orders, the crew going about their tests as the craft drifted closer to the planet, and the small debris field left by Far Wanderer. It would take several minutes before the dark shape angled away from the planet, moving away from the gravity well until it leapt into hyperspace, leaving the dying planet alone once more, slowly spiraling toward its demise.