Chapter 3
The ramp of the shuttle slowly lowered down onto the floor of the hangar bay. Shortly thereafter, Rex, his squad of stormtroopers, and the engineers walked out of the shuttle. The engineers were wearing sealed enviro-suits with helmets on their heads, and the stormtroopers had tanks on their backs that contained an ample supply of oxygen. Once everyone was assembled, Rex stood among them and pulled out a hologram of the ship.
"Our scanners have given us detailed information about the inside of the ship," Rex spoke to everyone present. "We're here, in the hangar bay." Rex then pointed out the hangar bay on the ship, which was close to the ship's engines. "The bridge should be right around here." Rex pointed out the location of the bridge. "We need to make our way there so the engineers can do their job. Along the way we'll search any places of particular interest and gather whatever intel we can. Understood?"
"Sir, yes sir," replied the rest of the squad in unison.
"Excellent. We'll split into several teams. I'll take a team of seven troopers through this passageway with three of the engineers." Rex traced his finger along one of the passageways leading to the bridge. "Varan, you'll take seven more troopers with the other four engineers along this passage." He pointed out another pathway through the ship leading to the bridge.
"Understood," the major said curtly.
"The other four troopers will remain here with the pilot and guard the shuttle. Split into your teams, then we'll move out."
About a minute later, all the troopers were split into their respective groups, with Rex and Varan both in charge of escorting the engineers to the bridge. Rex led his team towards one of the exits to the hangar, with Varan leading his team to another exit not far away. As the major passed through the doorway with his troopers in tow, Rex pulled out his dual SE-14r blaster pistols from the magnetic clamps on his waist. "Three of you with me in the front, the rest of you watch our six," Rex instructed. "Keep the engineers in the middle. Are we clear?" The soldiers all nodded their heads. "Alright, let's move." Rex then walked through the doorway and into the hallway leading to the bridge, with the rest of his troopers close by.
Varan's team slowly moved their way down the metal hallway leading to the bridge of the ship. They had to watch their feet carefully, as there was no gravity and their magnetic boots were the only things keeping them connected to the floor. Varan remained vigilant, his E-11 blaster rifle pointed down his path at all times. He had no idea what was on the ship, but he wasn't taking any chances. The training he'd received on Kamino all those years ago told him to be ready for anything.
As they rounded out the corner, Varan noticed a doorway on the right that was closed. "Dash, see what's behind that door," he ordered.
"Yes sir," the private replied. He carefully made his way to a control panel on the side of the door. Holstering his blaster, he immediately set to work trying to activate the door. While he wasn't quite as experienced as the engineers the team brought with them, he had enough technical expertise to work the controls. The other troopers guarded him as he did so. After about a minute of fiddling with the controls, the door opened and Dash made his way inside, his comrades continuing to guard the door.
"Major," the private called out, "come look at this."
Varan went inside the room to where Dash stood. "What is it, private?" he inquired.
"Look at all this." Dash then pointed his arm throughout the room. On the walls was a wide assortment of various types of weapons. There were weapons resembling assault rifles, sniper rifles, pistols, and heavy weapons everywhere.
"Looks like we've found the ship's armory," Varan spoke.
"Get a load of all these guns," Dash said as he approached one of the weapon racks.
"Private, be careful! You don't know anything about these weapons."
"Relax major, I know how to handle a gun. What am I, a Jawa?"
"Just don't fire anything in here. We don't need to haul your ass back to the Avenger in critical."
"Go ahead, keep making jokes, but I know what I'm doing." That having been said, Dash reached out to grab one of the guns on the rack, taking care not to touch anything resembling a trigger. Pulling it from its slot in the wall, he held the gun in front of the major for him to look at. "Looks like some sort of rifle. Can't tell if it's energy based or a slugthrower."
"We'll take it back to the ship and have a look at it. Give me that thing and go grab some of the other weapons."
"Yes sir." With those words, Dash made a move to toss the gun over to the major. However, there being no gravity, the gun drifted over Varan's head as the private threw it, heading towards the ceiling. "Damn."
"You know you're getting that, right?"
"Yes sir, sorry sir." The private walked past the major to the wall behind him, trying hard not to look at him, then used his magnetic boots to climb the wall to get to the gun. Varan let out a long, exasperated sigh.
"Shinies."
In another part of the ship, Rex stood outside a door with his troopers and engineers while one of his men worked a control panel to open the door. They hadn't made it to the bridge yet, but they were examining all the rooms on the way there to see what they could find. Rex raised his hand to the side of his head as his comm went off.
"Commander," Varan reported into the comlink. "We've located an armory on our way to the bridge. We're rounding up some of the weapons for closer examination once we get back to the Avenger."
"Copy that major," Rex responded. "We're outside a door. I'm having one of the engineers try to get it open so we can take a look at what's in the room behind it."
"Acknowledged. We'll rendezvous with your team at the bridge once we're done here."
"Copy Varan. Rex out." As Rex lowered his hand to his side, the door behind him opened. "Alright, let's see what we've got here." He went with a few of his men into the room. Inside said room were several dozen pods lined up on the walls. They all seemed big enough to hold a large man.
"Stasis pods," Rex observed. "Looks like the crew tried to keep themselves alive a little longer when their ship was disabled."
"Guess it didn't work," one of the troopers added. "Scanners didn't pick up any life forms. These pods must have died, and the crew along with it."
"Not a good way to go. Someone open one of the pods. I want to take a look at what's in there."
At the commander's orders, an engineer slowly approached one of the stasis pods. After he pushed a series of buttons on the side of the pod, the canopy opened, and a body floated out of the pod towards the ceiling. A couple of stormtroopers quickly grabbed the body to keep it from floating away. Rex stepped forward and got a good look at the alien before him. It was a tall creature, around two meters tall, and was mostly encased in armor. Its body shape was bipedal, with two arms, two legs, and a head. Its arms ended in hands with two fingers and opposable thumbs. Its legs bowed backward and ended in two-toed, clawed feet. There was some sort of hood surrounding the creature's neck. The head was scaly, indicating that the alien was reptilian. It had two eyes and a flat nose. Its mouth was full of sharp teeth and there was a pair of mandibles surrounding it. A crest of horns adorned the top of its head and poked out the back.
"What the hell kind of alien is this?" asked one of the stormtroopers holding the creature.
"I've got no idea," answered Rex. "One of you can take it back to the shuttle. We'll have some scientists examine it for good measure."
"Will do, sir."
"The rest of you come on. Let's meet up with the major at the bridge."
Rex and the rest of his team made their way to the door to the bridge to find Varan and his squad already there. Several of the troopers were carrying various alien weapons.
"I take it these are the weapons from that armory you found?" Rex asked.
"Yeah, we helped ourselves to a few guns," Varan answered. "Imperial Command is going to want to look at these."
"Come on, let's get this door open."
One of the engineers went over to the control panel on the side of the door while everyone else watched. After about half a minute, the engineer spoke up.
"Controls are fried, sir," he told the commander. "Can't get in."
"Looks like we're doing this the hard way," Rex remarked. "Cut this door open."
Following Rex's orders, the engineers brought out the blowtorches that they brought with them. The stormtroopers gave them plenty of room as they proceeded to cut a hole in the door. Within a few minutes, a man-sized hole was formed in the door, with one of the engineers kicking away the piece of metal they had cut out.
"Everybody in," Rex commanded. He brought out his twin pistols and was the first one to walk through the hole. He made a good once-over on the layout of the bridge. In the middle of the room was a large, circular holographic display, which was currently inactive. Several terminals were located around the display, and there was a large platform raised above it, presumably where the captain would order his subordinates from. On the sides of the room were several control panels with fixed chairs in front of them where the crewmen would sit and monitor the status of the ship and their surroundings. On the far side of the room was a large viewport that gave a view of the space outside. Rex could make out the large Celestial gateway in the distance.
He hadn't been inside the bridge for five seconds before a turret on the ceiling turned to face him. Rex registered its presence just half a second before it sent a hail of accelerated projectiles impacting against his shields. As a commander, Rex was authorized to use specialized equipment, and had a shield generator built into his armor. If he didn't have it, he would be dead at that moment. The shields, however, wouldn't be able to hold out for long. Thinking on his feet, almost immediately as the bullets hit, he pushed himself off the floor and to the side, causing him to float at high speed towards the starboard side of the room. In a split-second, Rex raised his blasters and sent a barrage of blaster bolts at the turret, destroying it. Almost as soon as that turret was disabled, however, another turret activated and pointed right at the commander. Before it could fire, a trio of red bolts impacted on the turret, destroying it as well. Rex turned to see Varan pointing his rifle at the now-destroyed turret, having saved his commander's life.
"Thanks for the assist, Varan," Rex said gratefully as he reached the edge of the room.
"Think nothing of it, Rex," Varan replied. "You would have done the same if it'd been my ass on the line."
"You mean I have done the same thing when it was your ass on the line," Rex shot back as his feet made contact with the floor once again. "You don't remember what happened with that Akul on Shili?"
Varan chuckled. "You're never going to let me live that one down, are you commander?"
"Not until you're dead."
The rest of the stormtroopers, followed by the engineers, soon made their way through the hole into the bridge. Once he was through, Dash went straight up to the commander.
"You alright sir?" he asked worriedly.
"I'm fine, private," Rex responded. "The bullets didn't penetrate my shields. No damage."
"Good to hear."
"Alright men," Rex ordered, pointing at the engineers. "Get into these consoles. Extract all available intel from their onboard databases."
"Yes sir," one of the engineers responded. "Right away."
"And while you're at it, see if you can turn on the gravity. It's getting a little disorienting walking around with mag boots in zero-g."
"Yes sir."
The engineers then each placed themselves at one of the terminals surrounding the holographic display. Once there, they vigorously began pushing buttons.
"Sir," one of the engineers called out. "The data is in an unknown language. I can't decipher it, but there seems to be some sort of linguistics program embedded here. I'm translating the data now."
"Once it's translated, copy the data onto a holodisk." Rex replied. "Same goes for the rest of you," he added, speaking to the other engineers.
"Turning on gravity, sir," said another one of the engineers. Sure enough, as soon as those words were spoken, Rex felt the pull of gravity pulling him to the floor. After a brief moment of vertigo, he straightened himself out.
"Ah, that's better," he exclaimed. "Okay men, let's finish up here, then head back to the ship."
Captain Pluma stood on the bridge of the Avenger, silent, stoic, and waiting for news. It had been a couple of hours since he'd sent Rex onboard the foreign ship to gather intel, and he hadn't heard back from him yet. Nevertheless, the captain was patient. Rex was a very capable soldier, and this was a simple task. He'd hear back from him eventually.
Almost as if on cue with his thoughts, Pluma heard a transmission coming from his comlink. "Captain, this is Rex. We've managed to extract a healthy heap of data from the bridge computers, as well as some weaponry and a specimen for study."
"Excellent work commander," Pluma responded. "What is your current status?"
"We're in the shuttle and are heading back to the Avenger now, sir."
"Good. We'll head back through the portal once you're aboard. Lord Vader will want word of this as soon as possible."
"Understood captain. Rex out."
"Be prepared to make the jump back through the portal as soon as Rex's shuttle lands in the hangar," Pluma ordered to the bridge crew.
"Acknowledged captain," replied Nemet.
Soon, the shuttle landed in the hangar bay of the Avenger, with it a treasure trove of intel, weapons, and an actual alien from the foreign galaxy. All of this valuable material would be put to good use by the Empire. Minutes later, the Star Destroyer turned back towards the gateway that would lead back to their galaxy. It slowly approached the portal before the tip of the bow touched the wormhole, at which point the whole ship blurred, then accelerated through the spiraling portal in the blink of an eye, leaving the newly discovered galaxy behind.