Chapter Thirty-Eight: Arrivals
A flash of white, accompanied by a terrible screech on the auditory simulator, tore Rask Petram from his state of concentration.
The commanding officer of the CSV Arbiter had followed orders. Drop the wreckage, open a hole in Had Abbadon's surface, and wait for Warlord Maul. Everything had been going according to plan. Until, that is, that scrap heap had broken atmosphere. Half their bombers, gone in an instant. And then the ship had ducked back below the atmosphere and taken their starfighters with it. All together, a pointless excursion that had cost the Confederacy eight trained pilots.
Not that it mattered, Petram realized. By the end of the day, the problem of re-training personnel would be solved once and for all. It still stung, though, to let a ship escape his grasp—on his first day in command, no less. Especially when the rust bucket was able to dust half a bomber squadron with what appeared to be a single laser cannon.
And now there was this. Whatever the hell this was. Petram supposed he should find out. Setting down the datapad he had been reading, he cleared his throat and feigned an air of confidence.
"What's going on?" he barked at a wetwork; the clone spun in its chair to face the commander.
"An unknown vessel has dropped out of hyperspace, sir. They nearly collided with us. Our shields took a hit from the energy wash; they should be back to full capacity in a few minutes. The vessel is drifting, it appears to have been impacted by the energy wash as well."
Petram's mind raced; he hoped this vessel's arrival was a mere coincidence, not related to that attempted takeoff from earlier they had barely contained, but it was a slim possibility. Backup, maybe? "Do we have a target lock on it?"
The clone officer turned and poked at his terminal's controls. "We do now, sir."
"Scan the ship. And hail them," Petram ordered.
"We're not going to open fire?" a weaselly voice called out from the rear of the bridge. Petram resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He had requested a non-clone bridge officer be transferred over to him, and after some personnel shuffling, he'd gotten exactly the opposite of what he wanted.
His chief gripe about the wetworks was the way they took orders. They obeyed them absolutely—barring any unwanted brain mutations—but they almost always waited until receiving instructios to actually act. No initiative, no creativity. He'd heard whispers that the newer revisions the Kaminoans were cooking up didn't have this problem, but his crew did. It was infinitely more work managing a bridge crew when you had to do all the thinking for them. He'd wanted another non-clone on the bridge to help split the workload. Instead, he'd gotten someone who questioned his methods at every turn.
"I'd like to give them a chance to explain who they are before we blow them up, Julian," Petram said, barely resisting the urge to inject a sneer into his subordinate's name. Turning his attention back to the clone: "What do we have, Officer?"
"Vessel is an ultralight performance vehicle broadcasting a Republic IFF and registration. Sensor data shows the engines are currently in a restart sequence. The ship will be able to move again shortly."
"A racing ship?" Petram snorted. That meant no shields. No weapons. As long as we don't scare them into running, this should be easy. "Share our targeting data with the Meridian. Tell them to lock on to the racecraft, but wait for my signal to fire."
"Aye aye, sir. They've responded to our hail, I have them on comms."
"Put them through," Petram said, standing tall and clasping his hands behind his back. A nod from the wetwork signaled he was clear to transmit. "Attention, unidentified vessel. This is the Confederate Space Vessel Arbiter. You have entered into space controlled by the Galactic Confederacy. State your business."
A gentle static hummed over the comm. Petram shifted his weight from one foot to the other, hesitating to speak again. He glanced over at the wetwork who manned the communication terminal and raised an eyebrow. "We are connected, sir," the clone whispered.
"Unidentified vessel, if you do not vacate the Had system we will be forced to open fire."
A chuckle played back over the communicator, followed by the voice of the racing craft's pilot: "Bring it on."
In that instant, the drifting ship's engines screamed to life. The Arbiter's auditory simulators rumbled as fire streaked out from the rear of the sleek red vessel. It shot toward Had Abbadon like a projectile being fired from a railgun. If the fleet didn't act quickly, Petram realized, the raceship would soon dip beneath the atmosphere.
"Open fire!" he yelled. Lances of emerald green launched from each of the four Dictat-class cruisers, but it was a useless gesture. The nimble vessel, small as it was, could easily evade fire from a turbolaser. The raceship danced and darted expertly around each beam of plasma. Petram doubted they were even getting close enough to burn the paint off.
"Cannons, goddammit! Do we have a missile lock?"
"We do, sir!" a wetwork responded. Petram turned to meet the clone's eyes.
"What are you waiting for? Launch them!"
Blue contrails streaked behind a cluster of concussion missiles as the rockets burst forward and locked on to the raceship. Petram watched intently as the missiles moved closer and closer to the bright red sport vehicle; a grin crept up the edges of his mouth as the wetwork at the weapons console read off the ever-shrinking time to impact. Three. Two. One
The raceship snapped into a tight banking turn; the trailing pair of concussion missiles attempted to follow. Flying as they were, side-by-side, one missile careened into the other. Shrapnel sprayed through space in a brilliant explosion behind the raceship, and the sport vehicle looped back toward Had Abbadon and sank into the atmosphere—for the second time today.
"Break off pursuit," Petram barked. "Keep an eye out, though. We'll catch them if they try to leave." Internally, he cursed. Today was quickly becoming the worst day of his career.
Another sound on the auditory simulator—the familiar thwump of a vessel dropping properly out of hyperspace rather than colliding with a cruiser. Petram almost screamed—if this were another hit-and-run he would very likely—
Oh.
He swept his eyes across the space outside the viewport and suppressed a shudder. The Scimitar had arrived.
As if to punctuate the ship's arrival, a hologram of the warlord flickered into existence in the center of the bridge. Instinctively, Petram dropped to one knee, bowing before the projection.
"Get up." Hauling himself to his feet, he brushed at the now-wrinkled knees of his uniform, attempting to hide his regret over the apparently unnecessary gesture.
"You are the one in charge of this operation?" Maul's image asked. The Zabrak crossed his arms.
"I am, sir."
"I have business planetside. I trust you've kept the caverns clear of your troops?"
"Of course, Lord Maul. As instructed. There is a small base camp near the wreckage of the Helios you may land at. Technical staff have set up a communication tower for you to connect your ship to. Per your request, there are no troops at the camp."
"Actually," a voice interjected behind Petram. It was Julian, his second-in-command. Petram turned back to glare at the officer, who was stepping forward to approach the warlord's projection. "I took the liberty of sending troops down. A few of our advanced units. I thought you might want backup before descending into the caverns, Lord Maul."
Maul uncrossed his arms, gesturing in the air with his right hand. The Zabrak's eyes narrowed as he spoke. "Did you? How very generous. Your forward thinking will be noted on your service record."
He made a fist, and behind Petram there was a sickening snap.
The commander turned around just in time to watch his newly-appointed executive officer collapse to the floor, neck twisted in an unnatural direction.
Petram's stomach churned; he forced himself to look back at the projection of Maul.
"Have your troop transports at the ready. Once I have landed, I don't anticipate my business taking long. We'll be in touch . . . Commander."
As the Scimitar streaked toward Had Abbadon and Maul's projection disappeared, Petram turned and gingerly stepped over the limp form of his XO. He glanced back at the wetworks, who were either pretending to ignore the dead officer on the floor or genuinely hadn't noticed Maul's display of power. "Well, you heard him," Petram said, willing his shaking hands to be still. "Send word to the hangar crews to prep the troop transports." He paused, then glanced at the body on the deck. "And clean this up before I get back."
It took every ounce of willpower the man had, but Rask Petram forced himself to remain calm until he made it to a turbolift. Only once the doors closed, and he knew he was alone, did he allow himself to scream.
Before the boarding ramp hits the dirt, the warlord is halfway down it. As it connects with the surface of Had Abbadon, he takes his first step into the mix of ash and rock.
In front of Maul, the wreck of the Helios sits. Wedged into the earth, yet towering into the sky. A monument to failure. It sickens him.
In every other direction stretches infinite destruction. Fires, burning still. Embers listing through the air. Ash falling like a deep winter's snow. Extending to the horizon, a great plain of death. It gives him life.
Maul turns his attention an approaching officer; the human stops in his tracks as the warlord's armored guards flank him.
"We can wire your ship into the comm tower, my lord."
Flippantly, the Zabrak gestures. If you must, he thinks to himself. He barely notices the engineers running the landline between ship and transmission tower. More apparent are the wetworks, hauling carts out of the Helios' corpse. Maul raises a hand, points to them.
"What are you doing?"
"Retrieving the dead clones from the wreckage, sir. The Kaminoans want them back. For . . . processing."
"Ah, yes." The slightest hint of yellowed teeth peeks out from between Maul's lips. There isn't much in life he is able to appreciate. Recyclable troops, though? He sees the value in that.
The officer points away from the wreckage, out into the burning flatland. "The opening into the caves is a bit over one kilometer that way, my lord. However, there's something you should know before you go in."
Maul glares down at the man. "What?"
"There has been some strange activity. One ship took off, then flew back into the hole not long after. Another ship came in from orbit and landed in the opening. Didn't look like one of ours. There may be people in the upper cave levels."
"That will not be a problem."
The officer nods. "No sir, of course not."
Maul turns back to face his guards; a dismissive hand wave sends the uniformed officer jogging back towards the wetwork cleanup crew. "Get the speeder," the warlord orders one of them. The figures clad in sleek silver plating nod in unison, turn, and disappear inside the Scimitar.
Pacing begins. He walks toward one horizon of emptiness, turns on a heel, then moves toward the other. The clouds of smoke overhead part, allowing Had Abbadon's sun to stream down and cast shadows across the camp. The warlord barely notices. He is lost in thought.
The back-and-forth walk continues. The camp surrounding the warlord seems to disappear. He does not notice the line he is wearing into the dust of the planet's surface. He does not notice the rock and ash discoloring the soles of his boots. The Sith is distracted by a light beneath the ground. Harsh and unrelenting, it is the unmistakable glow of the light side of the Force. It burns bright, but Maul knows it can easily be snuffed out. Jedi.
The sensation of light crawls up his skin. Maul's eyes widen. It is strong. Stronger than any one man, even the fabled Kenobi. More than one Jedi.
He kneels, placing a hand in the dirt, and stretches out, feeling into the caverns beneath him. Assessing threats, or perhaps sizing up prey. To him, they are one and the same. One. Two. Three of them. They are moving.
He lingers, sensing the direction in which they travel, then opens his eyes. The shell of the Helios towers before him. If it's where the Jedi are going, then it is where he must also go.
Maul rises to his feet. His shadow has grown long; the wetworks are boarding shuttles, departing the planet. He turns back to his guards. They stand dutifully at the base of the Scimitar's boarding ramp. "You, with me," he commands one. To the other: "You wait here. Keep the engine running."
Warlord and guard march towards the smoking wreckage of the cruiser. An outstretched hand wills a fractured section of hull to part, allowing access to the wrecked vessel.
"Lord Maul!" a voice calls from across the camp. It is the officer, jogging towards the Zabrak as he speaks. "The entrance to the cavern is that way." He points as he did before, out to the smoldering horizon.
"The wreckage connects to the cavern, does it not?" Maul asks.
"Well, yes, but it's an abandoned section. Completely empty."
The warlord's yellowed eyes narrow. "For now." Maul turns and disappears into the remains of the Helios, armored guard close behind.
REPUBLIC ARCHIVES: AUDITORY SIMULATOR
In the early days of space warfare, it was discovered that the silence of space was extremely disorienting to pilots. A ship—whether friend or foe—streaking by the cockpit without making a sound was considered incredibly frustrating, and pilots of starfighters and other small ships reported frequently losing their bearings while in flight.
To alleviate this issue, auditory simulators were integrated into the cockpits of combat vessels. These devices worked in tandem with a ship's sensor package to create a suite of sounds that matched the events outside the ship's viewport. Passing vessels, the firing of laser cannons, and distant explosions were now accompanied by audio feedback.
Auditory simulators are now a standard component of every starship. Simulator banks are filled with approximations of real-world sounds. Certain weapons, such as the devastating seismic charge, can temporarily disrupt auditory simulators, causing them to "blank out" for a handful of seconds before simulating the explosive shockwave of the charge. A common prank among pilots involves replacing all the sounds in a wingmate's auditory simulator databank with humorous nonsense. This is completely harmless and easily reversed, as auditory simulator databanks can update on the fly by downloading data from other nearby ships.