Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me; all of this is property of George Lucas, Lucasfilm, Lucasarts, and Disney. This story is also inspired by the film Goldeneye, which also does not belong to me. Goldeneye belongs to Eon Productions, MGM, and United Artists.

—25—

Rippan exited a turbolift and walked past a large room with a wide viewscreen depicting the galaxy's map. The map was monitored by dozens of Imperial engineers. He didn't appreciate the stale air of the interior of this Super Star Destroyer. He entered another room filled with computer terminals, at one sat Rix Danime. Rippan stepped next to where the technician was sitting.

"Are the Dark Troopers in range?" asked Rippan.

"Six minutes," answered Danime, exasperated.

"Prepare our communication with them," ordered Rippan.

"No," Danime refused. "It's too early. I'm not ready."

Rippan glared down at him and ordered again, "Do it." He left the room and Danime glowered back at him.

Cheato and Lahid limped their way through the ruins of the fueling station and managed to squeeze themselves into a maintenance duct, keeping away from curious mechanics, droids, and interrogative Stormtroopers. They stopped at a wide opening in the maintenance duct and witnessed a very, very long wedge-shaped Star Destroyer appear out of thin air where the gap had been a moment ago. The Star Destroyer was so large that, even through the bridge tower was the same size, the top of the craft seem to carry cities and buildings on it the same way that the entire planet of Coruscant did. Lights activated throughout the ship and hundreds of TIE Fighters began lifting from the ship and surrounding areas.

"No wonder we couldn't see it," Cheato said.

The TIEs began circling around the Super Star Destroyer and the fueling station, searching for something below. Lights twinkled to life within the Super Star Destroyer's hull.

"Come on," Cheato said. Both continued squirming their way through the maintenance duct.

Rippan opened the briefcase; inside was a disc and two gold-colored keycards. Rippan reached for the disc and approached Danime in his computer terminal room.

He handed the disc to Danime and said, "The galaxy's greatest credit chip."

Danime smiled greedily and grabbed the disc. But Rippan still held tightly onto it. Danime frowned and looked up at him.

"It had better not be rejected," Rippan said.

Danime finally tugged it from him and put it into a slot at his terminal.

Rippan took a moment to spy on the factory-starship for the Dark Trooper Project, the Arc Hammer, on one of the terminals as it accelerated through hyperspace to the outer rim of the galaxy.

The Super Star Destroyer's enormous rear engines began powering up. A dull red glow from the dozens of circular exhaust ports grew brighter and brighter. Cheato and Lahid watched.

They saw the Super Star Destroyer's engines come to full life. Fuel pipes from dozens of various ports around the ship began to slowly disconnect from the starship's hull, mechanics and droids directing the pipes with glowrods.

Cheato and Lahid crawled out of the maintenance hatch into one of the fueling pipes. From their vantage point there was a walkway where they stood and next to them was another pipe where the fuel flowed through. They ran alongside this pipe towards the Super Star Destroyer, hoping that this pipe wouldn't detach until they got into the starship.

Engineers and Stormtroopers continued to bustle from station to station inside of the Super Star Destroyer.

"Omega is online," said Danime watching one of his terminals, stopping from bouncing his stylus against his cheek. Rippan checked the same terminal.

"Sir!" said a Stormtrooper that just entered the room. He handed Rippan a datapad. From the screen ran the feed of a nearby security camera. On it were Cheato and Lahid running through a fuel pipe toward the Super Star Destroyer's interior.

Rippan turned back to the Stormtrooper and said, "Kill him." The Stormtrooper turned and left. Rippan returned his attention back to Danime, "That Rodian just can't take a hint."

Danime gestured back to the terminals, "Target coordinates."

Rippan smiled, "The target is Home One."