== Chapter Nine ==

"Just who gave you permission to go offworld?" Berini asked with a half-joking chuckle.

Ja'Ina sat up in her chair at the table in Berini's lounge and locked her eyes on Berini's. "Captain, it's the opportunity I've been looking for. What else am I supposed to do between racing seasons?"

"You have other skills besides piloting a swoop, my dear."

Ja'Ina frowned. "But nothing as rewarding, financially or personally."

"Don't get me wrong, Ja'Ina. I'm grateful for your contributions to our finances, and I'm glad you found a niche for yourself here on Yuulin. Thanks to you, we've got a decent stash of credits to last until the new season starts, especially with the income Taam and the others make. There's no need for you to go anywhere."

"That's not fair, Berini!" Kurloh interjected. "Ina actually finds something that is personally fulfilling and you just want to squash it?"

"Who said things have to always be fair, hmm? Remember that I run a benevolent dictatorship on my ship." Berini punctuated her words with a smug smile.

Ja'Ina briskly shook her head, recalling the 'benevolent dictatorship' argument she had with the Captain after she was first brought on board. "I don't want to go down that road again…"

"The truth's the truth, my dear. And if you don't like it, you know where the exit is."

Ja'Ina wasn't expecting that kind of a response, and it nearly broke her heart. "Please don't say that, Berini. We've been through too much together."

The Captain leaned forward towards Ja'Ina at the opposite side of the table. "Believe me, I don't say that lightly. I grieved over each and every one of my girls who chose to leave since we escaped the Empire. I grieved for them just as I grieved for those who had died."

"But that's different," Kurloh said. "We're not going to leave you indefinitely. We're just going to travel to Etti IV for Ina to run in a few races there. Then we'll be back."

"How can you be so certain? You may find life there much more to your liking. I know you, and most of the crew, miss the excitement. I just can't stand to lose anyone else. As it is, swoop racing is dangerous enough and I saw how close you came to making the Final Jump today."

Berini noted the surprised expressions on Ja'Ina and Kurloh's faces. "Yes, I watched the holo-transmission of the race. I always catch your races when I can, Ja'Ina. I've just never told you. I didn't want to make you nervous." She gave one of her trademark matronly smiles.

Ja'Ina was confused. "But if you support my racing career, why won't you let me go to Etti IV?"

Berini stared at Ja'Ina, unable to come up with a reasonable answer right away. Deep inside, the Captain knew that it made no sense to keep the young woman from taking this opportunity that had been given to her. Still, she was deathly afraid something would happen to her. Berini decided to take that angle with her response.

"Ja'Ina, the races are much more intense on the more populous worlds. And I've already warned you about the Espos. While their presence is light around here, you'll find Etti IV crawling with them. Just give them even the slightest reason to haul you in, and you'll find yourself at the receiving end of some brutal interrogation techniques."

Berini's warning was met with a pair of unconvinced stares. After a moment, she relented with a deep sigh. "You've got a point. I have no good reason for keeping you here." She stood up, her tall stature towering over Kurloh and Ja'Ina. "I wish you good luck, and we'll be here waiting for your return."

Ja'Ina sprang up and hugged her captain. "Thank you, Berini! I'll make you proud!"

"You already have, my dear." Berini smiled at the young woman. "Now get out of my quarters before I change my mind."

Ja'Ina excitedly turned and hurried out into the corridor, but Kurloh stayed behind.

The Togruta walked right up to Berini. "Y'know, you have no good reason for keeping anyone here," she said in a low voice.

The 'old Berini' would've punched Kurloh in the face and frozen her in carbonite for her insubordination. But the 'old Berini' was gone, and it was not known when or if she would return. The Captain merely frowned and shook her head slightly in reply. If Kurloh didn't know better, she would have sworn Berini was on the verge of crying, a notion that was as inconceivable as a black hole spontaneously forming right outside the ship.

Kurloh turned and left Berini's quarters, feeling a mixture of disappointment and pity for the once-proud captain.


A lone Imperial I-class Star Destroyer emerged from hyperspace within a forsakenly-remote area of space at the edge of the Corporate Sector; the nearest inhabited system being well over thirty parsecs away. While the Corporate Sector Authority was not an enemy of the Empire, it wasn't exactly an ally either. The CSA engaged in some trade with the Empire, who in return let the CSA maintain autonomous control of their territory so long as they didn't aid anyone who opposed the Emperor's reign. The Empire preferred to pool their resources toward crushing the Rebel Alliance, and so never bothered to annex the CorpSec. Even though the CSA was not aligned with the rebels, the rebels were known to utilize regions near the CorpSec to conduct some of their activities; hence the reason why the Star Destroyer was here.

The communications officer entered a lengthy sequence of commands into his console, and repeated the hail with a mixture of frustration and nervousness. He had received no responses to his hails and the last thing he wanted to do was get on the Captain's bad side for his failure.

"Status report, Lieutenant!" barked a voice right behind him, nearly causing him to shoot out of his seat.

The comm officer swung his chair around. "Captain, there have been no replies. I've tried all frequencies and got the same thing every time – dead air."

The Captain was not to the point of anger yet, just annoyance. Maybe they all were asleep, or deep in a heated game of Sabacc or just too busy to do their jobs or at least pick up the comm. As these thoughts passed through his mind, his annoyance started to metamorphose into anger; one that wouldn't be satisfied until every one of them was stuffed in an airlock and ejected into the void, figuratively and literally.

He leaned down next to the comm officer and activated the communicator himself. "Imperial Listening Station Gamma-342, this is Captain Davege of the ISD Prosecutor. Come in." He paused for a reasonable length of time for a reply. "Three-four-two come in! This is the Prosecutor, you will respond!" After a few more moments of no response Davege angrily punched the control to deactivate the comm. He stood up with a scowl and crossed the spacious bridge.

As he walked up to the wide forward viewport, Davege tugged down on his uniform's double-breasted tunic to fix the fit. Staring out over the Prosecutor's wedge-shaped hull to the listening station beyond the pointed bow, he crossed his arms and ground his teeth in thought.

The station appeared to be perfectly intact. There were no obvious signs of damage from neither turbolaser nor torpedo. The large communication and sensor arrays that sprouted from the structure were still whole. Judging from the still-flashing marker beacons and the light visible through some of the viewports, the station still had power. It just hung there silently, orbiting a rocky planetoid that wasn't much more than an overgrown asteroid that was pulled into a distant orbit around an insignificant sun.

There'd better be a good explanation for this, or there'll be hell to pay.

Davege narrowed his eyes in deeper contemplation. After a few moments, he spun around and briskly walked with long strides to the middle of the bridge where his first officer stood waiting for the inevitable orders.

"Commander Liegel, ready a TIE boarding craft and a squad of troopers. I will personally lead the team to the station. I want to throttle those seven men with my own bare hands!"

Liegel gave a quick nod. "Sir." He then walked off to carry out his order.


Captain Davege spent the entire time of the short trip to the station thinking of all of the possible charges that could be brought against the station's crew. While he wanted to execute them right then and there, his strong sense of duty as a career navy officer overrode his primal urge to kill them on the spot. No, he'd make sure that the maximum sentence would be imposed on the insubordinates. It would likely involve their deaths anyway.

Station Gamma-342 was a strategically important post isolated in a region at the edge of the CorpSec deemed too unimportant to thoroughly chart, but at the same time neighbored sectors that were known for rebel activity. An assignment on board this station might be completely uneventful, but the crew was still responsible for ceaselessly monitoring the area for possible threats. Constant vigilance was the key, and even a few minutes' inattention could allow an entire flotilla of rebel ships to pass right by. Boring as it may be, operation of the listening station was vital to maintaining Imperial control of the region. The crew must perform their duties with the utmost commitment. However, the station's last regularly-scheduled report to Sector Command was over a standard month overdue, and the Prosecutor was dispatched to find out why.

The TIE boarding craft docked with the station and the airlock opened without the need to break in. The away team was relieved to find the atmosphere within the station was still breathable. Being a fearless man, sometimes to a fault, Captain Davege stepped into the station first. Forgoing protective field gear, he still wore his regular duty uniform but added a duty cap on his completely bald head and a utility belt with a blaster hung at his side. The Stormtroopers followed right behind him with their weapons drawn, concerned for the Captain's safety as they walked into the unknown situation. However, it didn't remain completely unknown for long.

Davege had to step over the bodies of two enlisted men almost immediately upon entering the station corridor. He drew his blaster and silently motioned the troopers to continue on ahead while he knelt down to further investigate the deceased.

The men bore no outward signs of trauma; no blaster wounds, no cuts or punctures, no burns or broken bones, not even a single bruise. If it weren't for their faces being locked in expressions of terror, it would've looked as if they were just peacefully sleeping. No, it looked like they had died within a nightmare. Many questions formed inside Davege's mind.

He holstered his blaster and stood up as a Stormtrooper trotted up to him. "Report," he ordered.

The trooper saluted. "Sir, all station personnel are dead. There were no apparent injuries, though there are some signs of a struggle."

"Do the security recordings show anything?"

"No sir. In fact, the security databanks have been completely ripped out of their consoles, including the backup systems. We're not even sure when this could have happened, other than some time after their last scheduled status report."

Davege sighed. "Gather up all of the bodies. We're taking them back to the Prosecutor for further examination."

"Yes sir," the Stormtrooper replied with a salute.

While part of Davege was disappointed that the station's crew wasn't just screwing around so he could justify dealing with them himself, he was more concerned about the circumstances of their deaths. It didn't look like something agents of the Rebel Alliance or the CSA would do. In fact, it looked like nothing he had ever seen before in all his years in the Republic-turned-Imperial Navy. He hoped that the autopsies would provide some definitive information.

Once the dead crew was removed from the station, Captain Davege ingressed the boarding craft with the remainder of the Stormtroopers. Soon they'd be back on board the Prosecutor and soon he'd have some answers.