Main battle in deep space, always what the Imperial Starfleet had wanted, and now what it enjoyed a distinct excess in. Three Star Destroyers, and a light cruiser. It was not a force that any could mock for its power and strength. But the days of the age were quite different now. They had bared their teeth in main battle... Precisely and only because the ground had fallen out from underneath their feet. The Admirals and the fleet gurus were getting what they wanted, and losing.

Endor. Defeat. The Emperor – Dead.

Elrood Sector was falling to the rebels from the first heartbeat of this new and maddening age. Around them, dozens of starfighters and light capital ships tumbled in battle, space lit with the power of energy weapons exchanged and bolts refracting upon shields. She could not believe how they had survived those nine hours of desperate struggle after Endor, the other Captains, the crews, fighting like cadets. She had been forced with her small coterie of special officers to micromanage her ship. In the end, it had been for nothing. Falling back, she had retreated to Elrood and ignored Pellaeon's absurd usurpation of authority. Just to find Zed had done the same thing...

She gritted her teeth. Thunderflare's shields held and her main batteries sprayed space with fire, for all the good it did when their enemies were so small. But she was keeping them suppressed and off of her, and that was more than could be said for the enemy's hard press against ...

Even after all the years of rivalry, simply the shock of it made her blanche. Until Endor, she had never seen it. She never wanted to see it. Now she had seen it far too much. Shields collapsing, the bridge of her superior's flagship disintegrating, great gouts of plasma that had once been durasteel—and people—erupting from the bridge tower of a ship now covered in electrical arcs from surging subsystems and spinning out of power.

"Stalker is crippled, Captain! We've lost all comms contact!" One of the Lieutenants in the working pits flung a look of tired anxiety to her, Scolus she thought. They had already lost so much.

Black gloved hands tightened together, lain across the small of her back.

"Hold steady. The rebels are concentrating on Port Sixteen, shift secondary batteries to that arc. Maneouvre us to four-five-five and then hold position to cover Stalker while keeping our main fires interposed between the G.R.B. and the Rebels." The whang of heavy fire being soaked into the shield generator mountings and sometimes bursting through was growing more intense as the rebels could now concentrate against them, Stalker spinning off in her crippled state.

"Gree Research Base - Director Asil is asking if he can complete the evacuation now or if Captain Zed's orders hold."

The woman spun on a sharply booted heel. "They do not hold. Inform Director Asil he may evacuate – once he has commenced a countdown for the device." The crew tightened in nervousness around her. "We are returning to Imperial space! He is to set the slingshot device for the Deep Core Control Sector 0004 Empress Teta and commence the countdown. If the Rebels follow us into the slingshot field, they'll arrive in the midst of Admiral Oxtroe's fleet and be annihilated, so much the better for us. Everything else shall be evacuated or destroyed."

"Understood, Sir. ... Director Asil acknowledges the directives. He has pre-positioned most personnel and equipment on the base into the shuttles and they are launching now."

"Excellent." She walked out to the front of the bridge, glaring through the windows and returning to the holoprojection at its rear. The ship skidded under fire to starboard, but she held her balance.

"Localized shield failures commencing in shield sector eight, Captain."

Captain Tanda Pryl, HIMS Thunderflare commanding, stepped over to one of the comm interlinks in the bridge rails and cued it. "Commander Gristholm, I need you to stabilize shield energy with an interest in maintaining another five minutes of combat. Nothing more."

"Shields are failing fast, Captain Pryl, and the rebels are concentrating fire on the bridge, looking to reprise what they did to Stalker. Don't know if I can guarantee it, Sir."

"I'll take what I can get." She turned back to the comms pit, keeping her composure. Zed hadn't countermanded her yet, and with the level of damage to Stalker's bridge tower—she did not expect he ever would again. Good riddance. So arrogant, so overrated. Good men left to die with him... Ah! Dea, a small mercy.

Stalker's tumbling had stopped; someone aboard had managed to regain control. With Bombard close alongside, the wrecked ISD-II was once again alive, if in tremendously bad shape.

"Director Asil reports power generators are at full charge, Sir."

Tanda Pryl clenched a fist, and her wide cheeks flushed their fair skin red. "Get them off. Now!"

"Shields collapsing on the Bombard, Captain! Stalker will be at their mercy in a moment, and then we'll be next."

"Position us to cover her-begin calling the fighters back now. Ignore the station, the charges have been set and timed. The Rebels can't destroy it in time to stop us now." Two squadrons of X-wings slashed across the shields of the Thunderflare and abruptly she was in little better shape than her comrades in the operation. Gouts of concentrated fire ripped through forward trench batteries where their torpedoes had slipped through the growing cracks in destabilizing shields. Tanda spun and reversed the circuit of her pace, showing no further expression.

"Shuttles from Gree Base recovered. Slave links standing by. Director Asil sent us the codes and the links are reading positive to self-diagnostics."

"Very good, Commander Rhae. We can't wait a moment longer. Commence the slingshot operation." She turned toward the comm pit. "Signal Admiral Oxtroe via hyperwave that Captain Zed is presumed lost in action and I am assuming command of Elrood Sector Force, request confirmation and advise we are attempting a special method of reaching Empress Teta rapidly."

"Confirm, hyperwave to Empress Teta established, Captain!"

Commander Rhae raised a gloved open hand, executing the orders he had been given. "Establish control links to the fleet navcomps."

"Ship slave links reported, Commander. Rebels jamming!"

"Compensate."

"Links stabilized, Sir, but we won't have them for long."

"Transmit the control signal to G.R.B."

"Slingshot control signal commencing... now."

Space around the Gree Research Base turned yellow. It looked so profoundly unnatural that even Tanda stiffened. Then the stars returned, already flickering into pseudomotion. She saw the fleet pulled in with them, and sagged in relief. Then a strange purple iridescence swept across space instead of the usual purple-white madness of hyperspace.

Thunderflare shuddered below her feet. ... A very great lurch indeed, striking, twisting at them, the ship's Captain twisting at her knees to keep herself standing as... a second flash, a twisting feeling, the entire universe starting to feel a little... wrong. She snapped a look down to the pits, saw men vomiting, and managed a frown, but the sensation in her mind, she could not ignore. The part of her so vigorously tamped down, something profound had changed for it.

And then she fell into a console and held on as everything seemed to snap back into place. Coughing, gasping, men rose, and with the attentiveness of her vigorously drilled ship, began to file reports, check system status... Thunderflare kept breathing, both men and machine, operating as a single unit.

Tanda Pryl saw the holoprojector board light up with the first subspace sensor returns. Before them, then: A four planet system with an asteroid belt - the third and fourth planets, orbiting each other in turn, one a green garden world, the other, dead and howling with dust and wind and storms, with settlements under domes.

"This is not Empress Teta. Maintain alert. Report on the ... Flotilla?" Calling her pocket squadron the Elrood Sector Force at this point seemed absurd. And they were so very, very not in Empress Teta.

"Bombard reports heavy damage, Captain Turla is wounded but in command. They will restore shield power in twenty minutes. Chief engineer in command aboard Stalker, Captain. The reactor is not in danger and she is locked down on secondary power. Forty minutes to restore minimal shielding. All ranking officers slain with the destruction of the bridge."

Tanda pursed her lips into a tight smile. "Commander Rhae. Note in the official service log that Captain Tanda Pryl, His Imperial Majesty's Ship Thunderflare, is now in command of the military forces of the Elrood Sector."

"Aye aye, Sir."

"Rintonne's Flame?"

"Ah, Sir. Rintonne's Flame will have shields restored in five minutes. Captain Tezrin reports all batteries intact. His ship is ready for action."

I have a lamed squadron, but a squadron nonetheless. "Astrogation, commence efforts to localize our position within the galaxy. Consider it your first priority."

"Captain, there may be a matter far more urgent that stellar cartography." Lieutenant Saukon stepped to the holoprojector and flipped it over into tactical mode. Tanda at once raised an eyebrow – the image updated, and small flashes could be seen as the image updated and focused in upon a battle of some type, over the fourth planet. An eye-tearing flash before them was damped down by the holoprojector limiters as something in orbit exploded rather violently. What remained was a small flotilla of craft, proceeding on toward the green world, past a slowly growing path of wreckage, as a fighter duel in their wake.

"Can we identify the ships?"

"The make isn't in the combat recognition database, Sir. They're unknown ships."

"Those raiders that have been hitting outer rim settlements?" Pryl looked up sharply. At the back of the bridge, her ISB man stiffened imperceptibly.

"That's a rumour, and the information is locked down in the database, Captain."

"But something unknown is here. Find out their comms signatures." She paused. If you are to retain command – you must be decisive. It is your nature. Don't go against it." Rintonne's Flame is to defend Stalker and Bombard whilst repairs are completed. Prepare a microjump to the planet. Whomever they are they aren't interested in identifying themselves to the Empire and are contemptuous enough to ignore our squadron. If they were on our side in these catastrophic times they'd still have at least a code. If the New Order is to survive, we must make decisive examples of those causing chaos in the wake of the rebel treachery we have all endured! Calculate the jump immediately and stand by for action. We will excise this little rebellion immediately and then take steps to assess our situation."

She had worked desperately over the past two weeks to keep Thunderflare's morale high, and the result was encouraging. The crew leapt to action as the alarms trilled around her. Commander Rhae jogged down into the damage control pit. "All sectors closing blast doors... Transferring emergency power to shields."

"Microjump plotted, Captain."

"Execute!" Now her command flickered around her with the usual burst of pseudomotion, just to lurch back out into the gravity well of the planet a moment later. "Stand by to hail them on the general radio frequencies."

"Radio Comms ready, Captain."

Pryl stepped forward and activated the link on one of the bridge rails. "This is the Imperial Star Destroyer Thunderflare. Identify yourselves at once or be destroyed."

There was no reply to the message whatsoever, just a few flashes from the planet, as ground-batteries opened up... and quickly fell silent, kinetic-struck from orbit, as the last fighters were destroyed and the ships started to scream down into the atmosphere. A small pair of the small vessels turned about and started approaching her little flotilla, and then a quartet of respectably cruiser-sized motherships remaining in orbit followed them, all looking as ramshackle as Hutt security ships... they proceeded to turn toward Thunderflare despite the disparities in mass, launching breaching pods as they went in a very headlong, uncoordinated sort of attack. The Imperial officers exchanged stunned looks at the breaching pods.

"They have made their status clear. Full firepower from the forward batteries! Target those heavy raiders. Light turbolasers to engage the pods." Their shields still weren't fully restored, so it was... Somewhat concerning that they were facing such a great force alone, relying partially on emergency power. She did not aim to allow them to strike first.

"Comm transmission coming in! – not in Basic. Running it through the computers, Captain..."

Turbolaser fire was already rippling from the forward batteries of the Thunderflare. Commander Rhae glanced sharply to Tanda Pryl. She folded her hands again. Didn't order a cease-fire.

"We are the Blood Pack, and we do not share our slaves!"

The two exchanged a confident glance. The bridge crew redoubled their effort. Slavers. The first salvo rippled across the ships, and in shocked derision, they saw the primitive ships torn and scoured without the classic refraction of a single erg by shielding.

"No ray shields, we'll take them in ten minutes, Captain!"

"Quite. Shift fire to ion cannon only, and inform Brigadier Colonna to prepare the boarding parties. I want prisoners to interrogate!"

"Aye, Captain."

With a frown, Tanda turned to the comms deck while her ship's guns thrummed and thundered through the hull, falling away until the only great sound was from the two big aft ion cannon turrets, leaving the thrusters of the enemy ships firing wildly as energy skittered across their hulls. "By the way, what language was it in, Lieutenant?"

"Unknown. It was a Gree Protocol Packet from thousands of years ago, Captain. I ..."

Tanda frowned and looked to the battle-and beyond it. "Where are the Companions, anyway?" Her question was met with silence. Gree Protocol... Gree Research.