Chapter I: the Raid on Dac

I awoke to the cacophony of a Quarren orchestra, if such a term could be applied to such a crime against good sense, being pumped into my quarters through the intercom. In my haste to spare my newly awoken brain any more abuse, I flung myself out of my bed with exactly none of the grace expected of an Imperial officer, swinging desperately at the holographic button that would end this torture. My outstretched hand missed the button and I got a face full of Serennian carpet for my trouble.

I pushed myself to my knees and tried again. This time I found the button and, blessedly, the music stopped. I dropped back against my bunk, wondering why in the name of all that was good and holy in this universe that my usual wake-up call – a recording of waves crashing against a cliff face – had been replaced by this atrocity against common sense.

The intercom beeped, breaking my reverie. "Captain Phalox," came the heavily modulated voice, "we will be dropping out of hyperspace in thirty minutes."

"Acknowledged," I grated.

With all possibly of returning to sleep banished, I stood and stared into the mirror. I looked worse than I felt. Heaving a sigh, I turned and rifled through my closet for a clean uniform. There were twenty hangars in the closet, but only two bore uniforms. A more philosophical man would probably have seen some sort of subtle parallel between the emptiness of the closet and the state of the galaxy, but I wasn't about to indulge in such nonsense. Not when I had pressing business ahead of me.

Twenty two minutes later, I stepped onto the bridge. Lieutenant Tekkara offered a sharp salute, but everyone else continued what they were doing. Which was probably for the best – dropping out of hyperspace while your navigators are looking away from their consoles is a fantastic way to crash into a moon.

I nodded to the Zabrak lieutenant and settled myself into the captain's chair and ran my hand through my hair. It was time. "All hands to battle station." This mission was not about fighting, but it never hurt to be prepared.

The bridge erupted into a flurry of activity. The intercom blared out the call to battle stations, audible even through the three layers of durasteel that sealed the bridge off from the adjacent hallway.

"Assault Team reports green," Lieutenant Tekkara said. "Interceptor wing reports green. Bomber wing reports green. Starboard and port batteries report green." His voice trailed off for a moment. "All posts report green."

I nodded. "Ensign Leven."

"Dropping out of hyperspace in ten seconds, sir," the Ensign called back.

The starlines wavered for a moment and then collapsed to points as the Herald dropped out of hyperspace almost on top of a pair of Rebellion star cruisers, styled after the traditional Mon Calamari designs. The holographic display in the center of the bridge lit up, showing a half dozen New Republic warships scattered around the system. Sep Elopon, the gas giant that dominated the far end of the Mon Calamari system, was not nearly as isolated as Intelligence said it would be.
"Launch all interceptors and bombers," I ordered. "Focus all batteries on the star cruiser off the starboard bow. Forward deflector shields to full."

The crew responded immediately. The hologram lit up with green and blue triangles as TIE interceptors and bombers launched from the port hangars. Imperial green lasers lit up the bridge even through the dimmed bridge viewports as they slammed into the star cruiser's side, burning through the thin armor and ravaging the ship. The star cruiser began to list to its port side as the ship struggled to minimize the damage from the Herald's opening volley.

The second star cruiser opened fire, brilliant red lasers intermingling with the Imperial green lasers of the Herald. The forward deflector shields shrugged off the opening salvo, scattering the superheated plasma off in every direction. Flashes of orange erupted along the cruiser's topside as the bombers delivered their ordnance. Miniature green lasers flashed at irregular intervals as the TIE interceptors attacked the other cruiser's gun emplacements.

The first star cruiser finally managed to get its shields up, but only after the Herald's forward batteries had all but turned the ship into scrap metal. Plumes of smoke were leaking out at four different points where fires had raged before the compartments were vented into space. The ship seemed to be doing its level best to disengage, but the injury to its port side had forced it to turn and cut across the path of the Herald. The nose of the maimed star cruiser had begun to obscure the second vessel, presenting its largely unscathed belly to the Herald.

"Direct all forward batteries to the aft section of the first cruiser," I said.

"Captain," Ensign Leven said, "two more cruisers have just dropped out of hyperspace. They are approximately half a million kilometers off the starboard bow. They will be in firing range in three minutes."

I nodded. "Lieutenant Tekkara, instruct all squadrons to return by way of the starboard hangars. Ensign Leven, begin calculating a jump to hyperspace. Helm, bring the ship around thirty degrees to port and bring the nose up fifteen degrees."

As the orders went out, the first star cruiser's engines erupted into a cloud of viridian and a large section of the ship's belly sloughed off under the intense bombardment of the forward batteries. A string of secondary explosions split the ship in half lengthwise, hurling thousand kilo chunks of metal in every direction. The tell-tale flash of vermillion marked the death of at least one TIE interceptor pilot to this sudden eruption.

But it was the second star cruiser that fared the worst. When the first vessel's engines went, the force generated pushed the aft end of the vessel down. The secondary explosions that followed took the path of least resistance, with the bulk of the fragments coming from the fragmented dorsal section of the ship. These fragments pelted the second star cruiser, passing clean through the damaged deflector shields and reducing the star cruiser's bridge to little more than burned-out wiring and twisted metal.

The image of the second star cruiser wavered with the tell-tale pseudomotion of a jump to hyperspace. But without its navigation computers, the course plotted was unstable. Instead of jumping out of the star system, the ship listed to port and careened into the planet's moon at nearly two thirds the speed of light, forming spider webs in the celestial ice ball that were visible from a hundred thousand kilometers.

Red lights flashed across the bow of the Herald as the Mon Calamari reinforcements sought to join battle. The incoming fire was inefficient; of perhaps a hundred laser bursts, less than a dozen struck the Herald's deflector shields. The ship captains were allowing their emotions to cloud their judgement, needlessly squandering energy in some vain attempt to secure retribution of the three thousand souls that had gone down with the first two vessels.

I cast my gaze in the direction of Dac, little more than a blue dot in the distance, and silently lamented the failure of my mission. There would be no establishing a presence here in the Mon Calamari system after this operation. I could only hope that the Republic would misread my intentions as little more than harassment.

"All TIE interceptors and bombers are aboard," Lieutenant Tekkara said. "All assets stowed and ready for the jump to hyperspace."

"Course plotted and engines spooled," Ensign Leven reported. "We await your word, captain."

I pressed a button and the hologram flickered and died. "Jump."

The pinpricks of stars bled and turned into starlines as the Herald's hyperdrive bent the laws of physics and catapulted the Herald forward at seventy five times the speed of light. It would be another four jumps, and a grand total of seven days, before the Herald returned to Alkasinn space. I had exactly that long to figure out a way to salvage this operation.