Chapter 9
State of Emergency
An hour into the fight the distress call from the Space Marine Strike Cruiser Achilles reached a passing by taskforce on its way to the Cloak of the Sith. The taskforce of four Imperial II Star Destroyers immediately shifted course to the Ryloth system. When they arrived the entire battle was turned around, seeing that they were no match for a fully equipped fleet the three cruisers broke off from orbit and fled into hyperspace, moments later the enemy Star Destroyer, beaten and billowing frozen smoke followed its comrades out of the system. The Alliance taskforce then assembled around the planet, launching their troop contingents upon the contested areas.
From what he heard there were large scale skirmishes taking place within three major cities, plus a land battle in the desert. But from what he saw it was obvious that the Alliance would win the battle, the enemy troops were mostly outdated battle droids and mercenary units.
"This is the entire report captain?" the lead officer of the taskforce asked, her emerald eyes scanning the datapad he had given her. He had heard of this woman, Gabriella Rosso was a captain in Joseph Halos fleet, seemed that she was promoted to Rear-Admiral when she returned from his galaxy.
"Every word" the captain replied impatiently "We were testing a new kind of faster-than-light travel, escorting the involved Tech-Priests and adepts. We came upon this planet, saw that it was under attack and came to their aide. Currently we picked up twenty five survivors who are safe within our medical deck. We will return them to your ships for transport to the surface. We also have a Jedi knight aboard who was injured during the battle"
"I see"
"You may check the information over with Alliance High Command if you do not trust my word Rear-Admiral Rosso"
"No, there's no need" she replied thoughtfully, checking over the report one more time before handing it to an aide "I believe what you say, we will have a heavy shuttle prepped to evacuate the civilians from your vessel"
"It would be appreciated" he said, following her down the sleek, white corridors of her vessel.
"And the Jedi" Rosso asked.
"We will take her back to Ossus ourselves" the marine captain replied "No need for your fleet to divert that far away from where it is needed, with the rebellion in full swing"
"I see"
They entered the hanger bay and the captain saw the large form of his Thunderhawk gunship being prepped for the trip back to the Achilles. Two of his marines were stationed by the open landing ramp, bolters held against their chests in attention. All around them was a mess of movement, pilots and technicians were busy fuelling and arming the warships assortment of starfighters with speed and precision.
"Well captain I won't keep you back any further" the Rear-Admiral said over the din, holding out her hand "Have a pleasant journey"
"Thank you Rear-Admiral" the captain replied, accepting her hand "Although I would rather not leave a fight half finished"
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"Well Brother-Captain will they require our assistance" Falcourt asked as his commander descended the landing ramp. The hanger was in the process of being locked down for warp insertion, Techs were busy clamping down and deactivating the surrounding starfighters, moving them into compartments running along the gothic walls.
"No" he replied, passing by his second in command and continuing out of the hanger bay "They assure me they have the situation under control"
"I see" the Sergeant said as he fell into pace behind his commander, just ahead of the two space marine's assigned as his personal guard "So what will we do about the Jedi"
"Where is she now?" he asked.
"In the medical bay being looked at by the Apothecary" the sergeant answered, looking at a datapad "According to his diagnosis she had been thrown around roughly. The fight cracked two ribs, tore a muscle in her lower back and gave her a mild concussion"
"I see, keep me posted on her condition. She is our responsibility until we reach Ossus"
"She wishes to see you sir" Falcourt said suddenly "It was one of the first things she asked for when she was carried into the medical bay"
"Do we have any information on her?"
"Yes sir" Falcourt replied, noticing that the captain had changed his original route from the bridge to the medical bay "There was no record of her in the archives of the New Jedi Order so the Tech-Priests did a little more in depth search. Her name is Aayla Secura, a resurrected"
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They had followed the smuggler ship at a distance ever since it left the surface of Roon. Han yawned as he resumed his checks of the Falcons hyperdrive and navigational systems, when the ship was in hyperspace there was not much that could be done. It was set on a predetermined course. He leaned back in his chair, watching for any changes in the speed of the craft they were pursuing.
His nose picked up a sweet aroma and he swivelled around in his chair, smiling when he saw his wife enter with two steaming hot mugs of caf. He took the cup and smiled up at her "Just what I needed"
His wife took her seat in the co-pilots chair, blowing on her caf before taking a sip. Han hesitated before copying her manoeuvre, blowing on his drink before taking a long swig.
"I'm worried Han" he looked over at his wife and felt his heart sink at the tired look on her face, obviously first Jaina and now Anakin being kidnapped was having a bad effect on her "I feel like I might not ever see them again and it scares me"
Han leaned over and placed his hand over hers, offering her a reassuring smile that he didn't feel "We'll get them back, those kids have been in danger from something since they were born. The Empire, Palpatine, the Yuuzhan Vong, they always came out of it alright"
It was the wrong thing to say, Anakin had died during the Yuuzhan Vong war and the effect it left on Jacen was probably what made him turn his back on the Jedi Order in the first place. Still Leia turned to him, a brave smile adorning her lips "I hope you're right"
"Of course I am" Han replied with his trademark lopsided grin "What would Chewie say if he were still here" even though the Wookiee had died at the beginning of the Yuuzhan Vong war Leia couldn't help but smile at his memory.
"He would growl and complain about how much trouble those kids are, and then tear half the galaxy apart looking for them" she giggled slightly.
"Yeah" he replied with a sad smile "He would"
"But I can't sense them Han" Leia suddenly said "That's what's scaring me"
"Their not-" he started worriedly before being silenced by a look.
"No, their not dead Han" Leia replied "It's like something is blocking me, it's like there's a bubble around that freighter stopping me from getting in"
"That only means one thing" Han snarled "Those slemos have anti-force weapons as well"
"They are well equipped" Leia surmised before looking at the navigation displays, taking another sip from her mug "And that makes them especially dangerous, if they can negate the powers of both forcelings and psykers then they will have the advantage whatever way you look at it"
"Only if they surprise us sweetheart" Han replied, taking a sip, he stopped suddenly, eyes wide. Warning alarms blared throughout the bridge and the former smuggler shot forward in his chair, the cup of caf falling from his lap and spilling its contents onto the deck, he began pulling back the hyperdrive gears sharply.
"What are you doing?" Leia asked in surprise, grabbing a hold of her chair to stop herself from flying forward as the ship slowed.
"They're slowing down" her husband explained quickly, pushing runes and pulling back another throttle lever "They're coming out of hyperspace!"
The Falcon exited hyperspace to find nothing but the darkness of real-space stretched out before them. No sun, no star system, nothing within sight. Han pulled up a holographic image of the freighter, watching as it came to a sudden stop and wait. He pushed several more runes, shutting down the engines and everything but the most basic systems.
It was then that Ishta and Marcus stalked into the chamber, both fully dressed and armed, the Inquisition agent starred murderously at the image of the freighter before laying a cool gaze upon Han.
He shrugged "They stopped"
"Then now's our chance" he snarled "Lets take that freighter and interrogate the pilot!"
"No" Leia replied, ignoring the agents murderous stare "This is obviously a rendezvous point, we wait then follow whatever ship appears"
"What about Chadaara" Ishta asked "We can't just leave her on that ship!"
"Your right" Han countered "But in order to find the others it is the best course of action to wait and see!"
An alarm blared. There was a great flash in the distance. No need for any holographic magnification, they could all see the other vessel clearly. It was a Star Dreadnought, a nineteen kilometre long sword shaped behemoth, its hull painted matt black and its many weapon emplacements adorning its hull. A single heavy assault shuttle, Lambda-class,soared through the mammoth hanger bay.
"Force you gotta be kidding me" Han cursed, then he noticed movement on the command ships hull and magnified. The hull was covered with small four legged creatures, no, not creatures, droids! Dozens and dozens of old Clone Wars era Droid Starfighters, six of which unclamped themselves from the armoured hull and flew after the shuttle, creating a defensive vanguard as she approached the small freighter.
"That thing is covered with Droid Starfighters" Han breathed "This isn't good"
"How many" Marcus asked.
"Hundreds, maybe thousands considering the size of the ship their hitching a ride on" Solo answered before turning to Leia "Send the image to Alliance High Command. They need to be warned about what they're going up against"
Leia nodded and began inputting the code. The assault shuttle had slowed to a crawl, docking with the freighter, the six droids taking up hovering positions around the two, stopping any chance of escape.
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Footfalls echoed in the distance, bouncing off the steel walls of the enclosed space. At this moment her head felt like a drum being beaten by sticks, a continuous pain rocketing through her skull. She had been locked away in a small chamber which she considered was not originally designed as a prison. The lights had been dimmed to their lowest setting, creating an eerie twilight which her senses had been forced to adjust to.
She doused the sudden rise of panic and fell upon her training for support. She assessed her situation and condition. The throbbing pain, the dizziness and light-headedness were all symptoms of a concussion, of what level was still unknown to her. After all she was not trained in the arts of the healer. Her wrists and ankles had been bound by force-cuffs, attached to chains which were attached to clamps to the walls. The chains had been tightened, allowing her almost no freedom of movement.
She was not the strongest forceling in the Jedi order by a huge margin, but forcing a pair of cuffs open was within her abilities. She closed her eyes and concentrated, looking for the currents of the force to aide her. But there was nothing, she felt nothing. The panic started to rise again, yet she still managed to quell it. She took a deep breath and tried again, as she strained herself further the pounding in her skull intensified until it was nearly unbearable.
She let out a scream, a violent mixture of pain and frustration before she released her connection. She was unable to access the force. Now her panic was getting harder to subdue. She had known the force to some degree for her whole life, to be unable to call upon it was terrifying.
The footballs came to a halt, she could hear the feint jingle of keys. The door rose up from its place. Harsh white light sliced into the chamber, violently and cruelly attacking her senses. She closed her eyes tightly, gritting her teeth as the bright light caused blotches to appear in her vision.
She could hear five sets of footfalls enter the chamber, each coming to a stop a few feet away from her. One spoke, a gravelly voice "Is this her?"
One took a step closer. She felt a foot impact harshly against her lower abdomen, threatening to crack a rib. She whimpered "Yeah, this is the one. She was feisty, broke my boy Brax's nose"
"And I'd happily do it again" she grunted and received a slap across the cheek.
"Stay silent Jedi whore" he growled before turning to the others "Those animals you supplied us did the job well"
Her vision had returned to her. There were two smugglers and three others in the chamber. The smugglers were a tall, lanky human who had the glint of a murderer in his eyes and a Rodian with a long scar across his left cheek. The human had an animal coiled around his neck, a lizard like creature. The other three were concealed in hooded cloaks.
Finally she recognised the creature and her stomach sank, Ysalamir, no wonder she couldn't call upon the force. The Ysalamir created force repelling bubbles around themselves, making any attempt to call upon its power fruitless. The Yuuzhan Vong used them to great effect during the last war.
"Is this the only one you managed to capture" the central figure asked, looking to his comrade to the left.
"Yeah" the smuggler replied "But I heard you managed to capture most of the others"
"Good, good" he replied, turning around and making to leave the space, he placed a hand on one of his subordinates shoulders. There was a flash of movement and the cloak was thrown off, revealing the nightmarish form of a Dark Eldar warrior, wearing his black mesh armour with purple trim, his face a pale ghostly visage with a topknot of black hair.
He aimed his splinter rifle and squeezed the trigger. The human's eyes went wide before he fell forward, a mass of miniscule crystals dug into his back. The Rodian spun, drawing his blaster pistol but the Dark kin was far too fast and within a matter of moments he too fell to the ground, joining his boss in death.
The other walked forward, also throwing his cloak aside to show the black armoured form of another Dark Eldar, this one wearing his spiked helm. Chained and helpless Chaadara could do nothing as the fallen Eldar slammed the butt of his splinter pistol into the side of her neck. She gave a grunt of pain before the darkness took her again.
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Han watched as the heavy shuttle detached from the freighter and began its descent to the hanger of the massive Star Dreadnought towering over them. The six starfighters surrounding the shuttle broke away, flying at maximum safety speed to their mother ship before landing and digging into the hull. As the shuttle disappeared into the gapping maw of the hanger the titanic battleship began to move away.
"Leia follow that dreadnought" Han said quickly.
His wife nodded and immediately set to work, using all of her skill to hack into the mainframe and mimick the much larger warships jump coordinates. She was silent for several seconds, completely determined on her task "Got it"
"Hold on" Leia muttered, peering over the co-pilots station "They're powering up one of the main batteries"
On the far left side of the warship one of the massive Turbolance batteries swivelled around, locking onto the floating form of the freighter. Its barrels began to glow with highly volatile green light before it fired. The lance of emerald light punctured the hull of the smaller freighter, causing it to explode in a hail of fire and debris. Before the flames were put out by the vacuum of space the Star Dreadnought was on the move, pulling away from the burning remains.
"Force me"
"Forget it" Han replied "Follow that ship"
As he spoke the six droids gripped onto the hull of the huge battleship, allowing the Star Dreadnought to disappear into hyperspace, followed a few moments later by the Millennium Falcon. Han gritted his teeth. This promised to be more dangerous than he originally thought.
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"I hear that you wish to speak with me" Wolfsbane asked as he stood at the edge of the medical bed, watching as the Apothecary applied bandages to the female xenos abdomen. The Jedi was sitting on the bed, garbed in a simple hospital gown to make it easier for the healer to get at her wounds. Even as he spoke the space marine mused on how human she actually looked.
"Yes I do captain" Aayla replied "I have come here to ask for your help"
"Oh" the captain replied with a raised brow "This is not our territory milady, perhaps it would be better if you asked the Alliance Starfleet"
"It is" the resurrected replied "But for this I want the best, and I want them quickly"
"Go on"
"As you know there is a rebellion going on"
"Yes"
"There is more to it than meets the eye" she began "The rebels are equipped with weapons and technology more military grade, even if it is fifty years old or more. They are getting their supplies from someone else, and I feel that this someone else has another purpose behind it. He wants to use this insurrection as an excuse for the Alliance to use up more military power, weakening their defences on more key worlds"
"Go on"
"We came to this conclusion when a number of Jedi went missing, including figures like Jaina Solo, and now Anakin Solo" she continued "And now the existence of a Dark Jedi in this taskforce has added to my suspicion"
"This still means very little to us Jedi" Fenrir said with a heavy sigh "It would still fall within the jurisdiction of the Alliance, and the Emperor is quite adamant about us not interfering unless we have no other choice"
"Anakin Solo was one of a team of Jedi escorting an Inquisition Cadre" Secura added, making the captain stop in his tracks "To date one of her warriors is dead, another and the Inquisitor herself has been captured by the enemy. Like it or not captain you have to get involved, it is no longer an issue of whose jurisdiction it is"
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In the darkness of space the Star Dreadnought Phoenix Shadow dropped out of hyperspace. Its hordes of freeloading Droid Starfighters detaching from its hull and swarming around her like a flock of birds around their nesting grounds. Ahead of them was a star system, a single young sun orbited by five smaller bodies, two of which were huge gas giants of swirling clouds, another two so close to their sun that they were unliveable to any organic life, and a single planet in between in just the right place.
This world was an unknown, never had it been found by explorers or placed in any star charts, for this planet was an ancient store house, a cache of weapons and starships left over from the days of the First Sith Empire. In more recent history the planet was discovered by the late Emperor Dantius Palpatine, also known as Darth Sidious and turned into one of his many secret storage houses.
It was on this world and the impressive ring shaped shipyards surrounding her that they found the complete form of the Phoenix Shadow, as well as many other weapons. Surrounding the planet was the silhouettes of over two hundred warships, ranging from old Trade Federation Providence-class Destroyers to Venator-class Star Destroyers and far older Sith warships. Not the most modern fleet in the galaxy by a huge margin, but the dark emperor had been experimenting with new technologies before his demise.
As the Star Dreadnought waded through the mass of warships and swarming starfighters it never noticed that another ship had followed in its after burn, completely unnoticed by any of the other starships. The Millennium Falcon had exited hyperspace at the same time as the much larger vessel and, through galaxy class flying and a lot of luck had managed to land and secure itself behind the super capital-ships command tower.
Han Solo breathed out a sigh and slumped in his chair, watching with rising dread as a trio of Droid Starfighters passed them by, then relaxed when they rounded the corner "Turn off everything. Right down to emergency systems, no signal, nothing that would go noticed by that mynocks nest out there"
Leia nodded before hitting switches and runes across her control panel, one by one the lighting on the control panels winked out, a dying series of whines represented all major systems as they were shut down one by one.
"How can they get so many" Ishta asked as she watched the silhouettes of a dozen warships floating in the starry darkness.
"It was said that Palpatine had created dozens, maybe hundreds of storehouses on unknown worlds. Even though the New Republic found plenty of them there was always a strong possibility of others out there"
"It was from one of those store worlds that the Resurrected managed to obtain the fleet they used during the Chaos Wars" Leia added "The three Eclipse Star Dreadnoughts and the new Executer were from one such storehouse" from the looks of the agent and the Farseer she raised an eye brow "What? Did you really think they just appeared out of thin air?"
"Enough" Han muttered tiredly "We can't afford to send a signal, or we'll be discovered…how many zero gravity suits do we have?"
"What are you planning?"
The ex-smuggler swivelled in his chair and winked "I'm going to take a walk"
Sorry bout the delay, but hope you all enjoyed the chapter.