Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars or any characters, planets, props or money associated with it.

Authors Note: Well, I promised you I had another story in the making, didn't I? Simply took a little longer to get written than I thought... Anyhoot, enjoy!


Green and red lasers arced across the blackness of space. The alien freighter's sublight engines roared with intensity and power as it shot across the bow of the second vessel and towards the backwater planet below them both.

The second vessel faltered for a moment after the freighters maneuver, than quickly readjusted its course and continued its pursuit.

The freighter abandoned its attempt to disable, or even destroy, the second vessel and, powering down its weapons, threw everything it had into its engines.

The second vessel, Imperial Patrol Cruiser Imperial Reach, continued to target the freighters engines in a hope to disable them.

Executive Officer Ishale Durren braced herself against the chair of her dead captain, her eyes darting across the tactical display in front of her.

"They've cut all power to weapons! Any hope they'll do the same to shields in order to get better engine performance?" She yelled out to her Chief Engineer.

"They'd be crazy as hell if they did," Salth Cass responded.

Durren gripped the back of the seat tighter as the Imperial Reach momentarily jerked after another burst of laser fire.

"Range until they're in the planet's atmosphere?" She yelled out.

"23 and closing!" The answer was shouted back.

"Fine. Cass, screw this disabling fire. Target bridge and incinerate these bastards."

"With pleasure," He said. Moments later the order was relayed to the turbolaser gunners, and the red laser adjusted position slightly towards the bow of the freighter. After two successive misses, the bridge exploded as the following lasers met their target. The freighter seemed to jump slightly, causing it to lose its entry position. The freighter bounced off the planets atmosphere, and exploded into flames.

Durren slumped her shoulders and sighed in relief.

"Damage?" She asked quietly.

"Minimum damage, except for bridge. No casualty's except for the CO. Ironic, isn't it?" Jagen Maris, the ships communications officer, asked. No one answered him.

As Durren looked around the wrecked bridge, she silently agreed with him.

It was bloody ironic.


The Imperial Reach, or simply IReach as the crew called her, limped back to the nearest Imperial star base. Durren ordered the CO's body to be packed for burial, and took over duties as the commanding officer. After all these years, she was used to it. The IReach had its fair share of captains lately.

None of them had lasted more than a year.

It wasn't their fault, Durren told herself. Some people were built for the outer rim territories, and some weren't. It seemed that more often than not, the idiots that Command sent weren't.

But stick them on an Acclamator, or Star Destroyer, or hell even a patrol ship in the Core and they would succeed. But not here.

They just weren't built for it.

Core born and bred, with a silver spoon in their mouth since childhood. These men were born to become officers, whether or not they had any skill or not. Durren had seen it dozens of times before, and not just while serving as the IReach's XO.

The one true fault with the New Order, Durren believed, was it never went far enough to destroy corruption like that in the Military. And people like Durren and the crew of the IReach had to pay for it.

Durren cast her eyes around the bridge at the crew working around her in crowded conditions. The IReach was a large ship, but most of the space was wasted as cargo space. The bridge itself was barely large enough for the crew required on it. She glanced briefly at each of the four men and women under her control and sighed.

How the commanders of thousands or even millions could stand the pressure was beyond her knowledge.

Although based on her personal experience with said commanders, they simply didn't care for those under their command.

And that made her sick.

"Ma'am, Annaj shipyards report they won't be able to see us for another 3 standard days." Nikki Chasta, ships helm and navigator, interrupted after reading the transmission from Maris.

"Great, just what we needed. Fine, slow us down. No need to get there in a rush if can't do anything yet."

"Oh great. Just in time for the body to start to stink." Maris said without looking up from his display. Durren rolled her eyes at him.

Other members of the crew were slightly more agitated by the comment.

Aldor Goran, ships Mechanical Technician, slapped him on the arm. "C'mon, show some respect for the man." He said.

"As long as he shows respect for my nostrils, we won't have a problem." Maris countered.

"How can somebody that spends so much time talking to people be so bad at talking to people?" Goran asked, shaking his head and diverting his attention elsewhere.

"Think they'll try to assign a new CO to us, or just give you command, Ex?" Chasta asked her.

Durren snorted. "Who says I want it? Besides, I'm sure it will take Command some time to get someone transferred down here so I'll be in charge for a little bit more."

"Palpatine help us," Cass muttered under his breath.

Durren smiled slightly. "Back to your engines, Chief Petty Officer." She dead panned.

The engineer gave a mock salute, and went back to his display.

Despite her answer in front of the crew, there was nothing else in the galaxy she wanted more than her own command. It was something she had some experience in, and something she considered herself rather good at.

After all, it wasn't her that ordered the IReach to drop shields in order to board that smuggler. It had been the captain. He had ordered the smugglers to cut engines, drop shields and cut power from their weapons. The smuggler readily agreed, and heaved-to to the Imperial ship. The idiot CO-what was his name again?- ordered their own shields dropped in order to launch the obsolete TIE's, or attach a docking tube or kriff knows what. Cass warned him that the freighter was powering up weapons but the CO insisted that "gentlemen don't break gentlemen's agreements."

A lot of good it did him. The smuggler hit the bridge with his first shot, causing a power overload in some circuit that shorted out the command console, sending bolts of electricity firing from it and towards the nearest outlet, which ended up being the CO himself.

He was dead as soon as it hit him. Cass immediately powered shields and weapons, but the smuggler had already gained the advantage and was aiming for the planet below with everything it had. Durren ordered the IReach to engage and follow, and ended up destroying the smugglers.

She wondered briefly whether to have Goran take a look at the console now, or wait until they reached Annaj… She decided that it wasn't going to do them any good sooner rather than later, and decided just to have him wait. When they reached the repair station, she would have them do a complete re-haul of the ships systems. That should make Cass happy, at least.

Durren rubbed her eyes.

"Tired, Ex?" Chasta asked her.

Durren faked a smile and lied.

"No, just the smoke from earlier is still bother my eyes."

Chasta smiled at her poor attempt at lying, but said nothing.

"Ma'am, incoming transmission from Annaj. Shall I patch them through to a private comm?" Maris interrupted the silence.

Durren sighed. "Yeah, go ahead. I'll take it in the C - the command office."

Maris nodded, and Durren sat up from her chair and straightened her uniform.

"Chasta, you have the bridge."

"Navigator has the bridge, Ma'am."

Durren walked across the rubble of the bridge towards the turbolift at the end, and keyed it for C deck.


The command office was in actuality the CO's office. And since Durren was acting CO of the IReach, she had every right to be in there.

But for some reason, she felt weird being in it. Like she was in a graveyard, almost. Messing with the belongings of a dead man.

She shook the feeling away, and pulled a pair of radio headphones over her head, and answered the beeping comm signal.

"Durren, go ahead." She said.

"Lieutenant, this is NavCom here on Annaj. We've received your report, and you and your crew have my condolences. It can't be easy losing a Commanding Officer like that."

"We didn't know him very long, sir." Durren said, and instantly regretted it.

"Right, well, we've got a replacement for you as soon as you're ready. What's the Imperial Reach's condition?"

"Bridge is a mess, sir, and I wanted to get an overhaul on some of our systems while docked. I've been told there's a three day wait?"

The man on the other line sighed. "That's right. Moff Riiza's got the only spaceport crowded up with who knows what. I'm trying to shift things around, and get you in there as soon as possible. How soon can you be here?"

"I figured we had time, so a slated it for a three day trip."

"Well change it. Push your engines for everything Cass can give them, and get here ASAP."

"Is there a particular reason why, sir?" Durren asked him.

"We'll discuss it when you get here, Lieutenant. NavCom out." The line went dead.

Durren rubbed her tired eyes again before reaching over to the intercom panel.

"Durren to the bridge;"

"Bridge here." The voice of Nikki Chasta came online.

"Nikki, get Cass to push those engines as hard as he safely and quickly as possible. Let's get to Annaj as soon as we can."

"Change in plans, Ex?"

Durren sighed. "Something like that," she said.

Chasta relayed her orders, and Durren pushed the intercom button again, severing the connection. She leaned back in her chair, and thought back to her conversation with NavCom:

We've got a replacement for you as soon as you're ready, she was told. She just hoped that it wasn't another idiot from the Core.

She closed her eyes, and clasped her hands behind her head, and letting them rest on her hair.

It was going to be a long couple of days, she knew. She had to break in a new CO, get repairs done for the IReach, and still had yet to receive her new orders.

It was going to be a long couple of days indeed.