== Chapter Thirty-Seven ==

The compact shuttle Valkyrie-One tumbled out of her mothership's ventral bay with the surviving crew of the Queen Valkyrie aboard. Moments after the small craft exited the hangar, blinding amber blasts of flames violently spat from hangar's hatch.

Berini managed to regain limited control of the shuttle's damaged maneuvering systems and righted the attitude parallel to Atsu's surface. This offered a clear view of the Queen Valkyrie out the port-side viewports. Everyone watched as their home for many years broke apart from the combined forces of internal explosions and the planet's gravity. There wasn't a dry eye among the former pirates, and some audibly sobbed. Berini grimaced with a trembling lip as she saw the remains of her beloved ship fall into the atmosphere and light up like a cluster of massive meteors.

"Goodbye, old girl," Berini quietly said to herself, filled with heartbreak. She watched the debris fall farther and farther away, fixated on the way that the pieces broke apart and spread out as they burned up in Atsu's atmosphere. She also thought of Yurlya, whose body remained in the Engineering section of the ship.

Berini was broken out of her thoughts when the shuttle shuddered and alarms sounded. She turned her attention back to the console. "What now?!"

"Captain, we're also being pulled down to the planet," Myrrna answered with a frown. "The ion drives were overloaded during the mess in the hangar, and now they've failed."

"Out of one fire and into another," Berini grumbled. She looked back at her crew who were seated behind her. "Alright girls, it looks like we're going to have to put her down somewhere on Atsu. It might get a little rough so hang on!"

Berini tried to angle the shuttle for proper re-entry. She hoped that it wouldn't be too hard to do with Atsu's thin atmosphere, but as evidenced by the Queen Valkyrie's falling wreckage, they could still burn up if the approach wasn't executed properly.

"But isn't it deadly down there?" Juun asked, worried about the scorching hot, thin atmosphere.

"We don't have much choice, my dear," Berini replied. "We're going down whether we want to or not. Hopefully, someone friendly will hear our distress signal."

"Assuming there's anyone friendly still alive," Myrrna grumbled from the copilot seat.

Berini turned to her Twi'lek first officer. "We can hope!" She turned back to the shuttle controls. The Captain struggled within to hold on to that hope, even though it was very small. Between the Star Destroyer and the Anzati, their friends were terribly outnumbered.

Aboard the Skimmer, Rann slumped over in her chair, switching her stare from her bared flesh-and-blood left leg to her covered mechanical right leg then back again. What she could remember of her torture at the hands of the Empire played through her mind with the sharpest resolution it ever had before. While she was dejected by her impending death, she found comfort that it would be on her own terms and at the same time would inflict at least a little bit of damage and casualties on the Empire.

Den broke the silence. "Y'know, I woulda thought that I'd die at the hands of some shady gangster boss, given the life I chose to live."

Rann looked up at him with a light smile. "Lucky for you, all you lost was your hand."

"That's true," he replied with a chuckle.

Rann stared at the Star Destroyer, which grew ever closer to the captive ship. "You still have to tell me about your father, why you didn't follow in his footsteps."

"Hmmm, I suppose now's the best time." He sat back in his chair with a sigh. "My dad was a successful psychologist in one of the richer districts of Coruscant. One day, a few years after the Empire came into being, he was approached by a couple of officers from Imperial Intelligence who offered him a job."

Den's sarcastic inflection wasn't lost on Rann. "Just like how they gave me a job…"

Den shook his head. "Not like you. You see, they wanted him to work in their psychological warfare division, specifically for brainwashing and torturing prisoners."

Rann gasped. "That's horrible!"

"He turned it down of course, but the Empire was kind enough to give him one whole day to reconsider his refusal." Den's face turned dark. "The next day, the Imperials returned, this time with a couple of Stormtroopers… My dad didn't even bother to run. He stood by his convictions even though he knew what the consequences would be. I remember my mom crying and screaming, but my dad was brave. He told her she'd be okay, and told me to take care of her. Then they placed cuffs on him and he was gone, taken as an enemy of the Empire."

"How old were you?"

"Fifteen. Wow, seventeen years ago now. Time flies, huh?" He turned back to his console and pushed a couple of buttons.

"Destruct system activated," a computerized voice declared. "Provide voice identification."

"Captain Den Berikko. Authorization code zero-one-delta, tango-five-bravo-zero."

"Identity confirmed. Select manual or auto destruct sequence."

"Manual destruct. Code phrase," Den searched his thoughts for a moment. He wanted the last thing he'd say be something meaningful. "I love you, Rann Klepil." He pushed a single button then turned his chair to face Rann.

Her heart skipped a beat when she heard him complete the sentence. She leapt from her chair into his arms. "I love you too, Den!" They shared an intense kiss as they held each other tightly. They didn't notice that the Skimmer was now close enough to see the interior of the Star Destroyer's large hangar bay into which they were being pulled.

The ship's computer spoke again. "Destruct system initialization complete."

"Sir, the target ships are about to enter the main hangar," Commander Liegel announced to the Captain.

"Excellent," Davege replied. "The Jedi is aboard one of them. She is the only one I want. Retrieve her and dispose of the others."

Liegel gave a slight nod. "Yes, sir. We have the boarding parties standing by."

Davege didn't answer, but only smiled to himself as he sat in his command chair. Thoughts of commendations and promotions were already swirling in his mind, but he caught them and squelched them. No, he didn't want to celebrate too early. That could lead to disastrous mistakes before he could claim complete victory.

Suddenly, alarm klaxons blared and the bridge lights turned red. Davege shot up from his chair. "Report!" he shouted.

"Captain," the Sensor Ops officer called back, "there's a small ship quickly closing on the command tower!"

"A ship? What ship?!"

"Sir, it's one of the Anzat starfighters!"

"I don't believe it," Davege grumbled. "Concentrate fire on that blasted ship!" He ran over to the Sensor Ops console and took a look for himself. The blip blazed quickly across the screen. "That madman is going full-throttle!" He stepped back from the console. "Blast that fighter into oblivion before it hits us!"

"Captain, he's too small and fast for our cannon emplacements!"

"Nonsense! There'll be no excuses for failure on my ship!" Davege called behind him. "Weapons Officer, wake those gunners up! Tell them if they fail, I'll personally space them!"

"S-sir!" was the response the Captain received.

Blinding emerald streaks of charged energy crisscrossed over the dorsal hull of the Prosecutor, unable to make contact with the small fighter. Vorven paid the blasts little heed. He managed to keep within the narrow pathway formed by the crossfire. The Anzat had pushed his Z-95 well past its mechanical limits, and fought to keep it flying straight before it tore itself apart. Nothing was going to keep him from exacting his revenge on the Empire.

Vorven's grip on the HOTAS tightened to the point that he lost all feeling in his pale fingers. His tightly-gritted teeth threatened to crumble under the pressure of his locked jaw. He focused on his target at the end of his tunneled vision – the Prosecutor's bridge. He was going to destroy the command crew of that ship for what they had taken from him.

Vorven growled as his goal grew closer. It couldn't grow fast enough. In his incomprehensible rage, the Anzat's eyes bulged and turned red from the intense pressure in his head. Like his ship, his body and mind were taxed beyond their limits. The broad façade of the command tower filled Vorven's forward view.

The insanely enraged Anzat roared at the top of his lungs as the unmistakable forward viewports of the bridge were clear in his sight. He mashed down on the trigger of the Z-95's wingtip cannons and loosed a constant barrage of crimson blasts as he bore down on the Prosecutor's bridge.

"Deflector screens at full!" Davege screamed as Vorven's Z-95 drew close enough to see out the forward viewports.

"Too late!" were the final words spoken by the Shield Ops officer as cannon blasts tore through the large transparisteel panes.

An instant later, Vorven's fighter slammed into the bridge, engulfing the entire space in an intense fireball. The explosion triggered a sequence of secondary explosions that ripped through the Star Destroyer's command tower and spread down the neck to the main hull. The control systems failed, causing the wedge-shaped ship to list and drift sideways toward Atsu.

The Skimmer breached the perimeter of the Prosecutor's ventral hangar bay. The Skipray shuddered as the tractor beam altered the captured ship's vector to pull it straight in on the final approach. Rann couldn't help but tremble with fear in Den's arms.

"I-I'm sorry," she softly whimpered. "I should be stronger than this…"

Den looked into her tearing eyes. "It's okay. I'm scared too. Even though we'd likely face a fate worse than death in the hands of the Empire, death isn't that much more palatable."

"Thank you, Den."

"Let's just look forward to the death we'll deal the Imps once we're landed."

Rann wiped the tears from her eyes and sniffled. "I know," she replied with a choked chuckle. "I do look forward to that. It's just that the wait is unbearable."

"I'm sure the others are going through the same thing."

Rann realized that she almost forgot about Ja'Ina and Kurloh on board the Fool's Pride, which was also being pulled into the Star Destroyer. "If the Empire knows that Ina and Ku have the Force, the Imps'll probably do something worse to them than they did to me!"

While keeping one arm around Rann, Den reached to the console and activated the comm. "Skimmer to Fool's Pride, you still there?"

"Yeah we're still here," Kath's voice replied over the speaker. "But not for much longer, if we have anything to say about it."

"So you're gonna destruct too."

"That's right, my boy! Before the Imps get us into the bay."

"No! Not yet! Wait until we land and are greeted by a boarding party-"

"Yeah!" Kath excitedly cut in. "We'll take some of 'em out with us! Excellent idea my boy! I shoulda thought of it myself!"

Rann leaned in toward the console. "Can I talk to Ina?"

"Sorry my dear. She's in back waiting for the end with Kurloh."

"It's just as well," Rann sighed.

"It won't be long now," Den added with a bittersweet air.

"We'll go out in a blaze of glory!" Kath proudly proclaimed.

Den smiled at Rann as he closed the com channel. "That's right…"

Ja'Ina took Kurloh's hand and squeezed it. The Togruta lay in her bunk, still unconscious from Vorven's attack and Ja'Ina's subsequent dark side-fueled Force throw. The young woman could sense through the Force that Kurloh's essence was diminished after the Anzat fed on her, and that was the main cause of Kurloh's current state. Still, Ja'Ina couldn't help but feel responsible for the entire outcome of the situation.

"Well Ku," she softly said, "it's almost time. I'm sorry it came to this. We really tried to get away, but the Empire was too strong. I know you don't want to die, neither do I. But it's either that, or the Imperials take us as fugitive Jedi and do Force-knows-what to us."

At the foot of the bunk, Fitty shifted slightly to one side and emitted a mournful whistle.

"Rann and Den didn't get away either, and I don't know what happened to Berini and the others. The Queen Valkyrie was in really bad shape when we last saw her. They're probably already dead." Ja'Ina felt herself drifting into a profound sadness as she tried to stifle her tears. She tried to fight it, but the more she talked, the worse it got. The bleakness closed in around her and she felt the pull of the dark side again.

Ja'Ina felt a subtle squeeze on her hand, snapping her out of her depression.

"Don't…despair…Ina…" Kurloh said, almost inaudibly. "Soon, we'll…be one…with…the Force."

Ja'Ina gave her friend a sad smile in return. "You're right…"

Suddenly, the Fool's Pride lurched to the side, causing Ja'Ina to tumble across Kurloh's bunk. Fitty emitted a panicked screech as he slammed into a wall.

Kath's voice burst out of the com speaker in the cramped quarters. "Hang on, Ja'Ina! We're gettin' outta here!"

Confused, Ja'Ina peeked out of the small porthole. She couldn't see much, but could see that they were quickly pulling away from the Star Destroyer. She excitedly grabbed Kurloh's hand. "Looks like we'll make it yet!" Kurloh closed her eyes and slowly smiled.