Flag Bridge, Imperial-II class SD Quill, Lead Formation of Tarkin's Fist

"We should have done this a week ago." Fleet Admiral Yos informed the young intelligence agent that was observing the Holovid of the probe launch along with him. The Quill had only been back on station for the past two days, and at the moment was monitoring the shakedown cruise of the Imperial I-class Star Destroyer Slash, one of his own Subterrel Squadron, that was currently making a short orbit of the nearby gas giant. It was the fourth warship in the Tarkin's Fist that had taken on enough fuel to maintain its reactors for a short shakedown cruise.

He reminded himself that he would be sailing the entire Tarkin's Fist closer to the asteroid belt next week so that they could be closer to their primary fuel source, as well as offer the miners out there some better protection, especially if the newly discovered local inhabitants of this backwater solar system objected to their presence out there.

Those local residents had weighed heavily on Yos's mind since their discovery last week and were what had facilitated First Lieutenant Knebler's presence on his Flag Bridge this morning. The presence of four new worlds inside the inner system had been confirmed from their gravity well signatures and through the use of long range sensors and optics. The discovery had left the Admiral in quite an ethical and professional mess. On one hand, there wasn't supposed to be any inhabitants in the maw. Grand Moff Tarkin had emphatically stressed the need for secrecy in this mission, and Yos felt that Tarkin would have wanted him to wipe these aboriginal beings out. Leaving no witnesses breathing would certainly help maintain security, and it wouldn't be the first planet razed by the Empire. Secondly the option of leaving the system, and avoiding any contact any time soon, just wasn't feasible for the next few years if he wanted to keep the entire Fleet intact. On sublight drive engines it would have taken the better part of two decades to reach the nearest system. Lastly there was the possibility of enslavement, which actually seemed like the most feasible settlement. Moffs Culter and Kuat were both arguing for the startup of rather large projects that would require huge amounts of manpower to achieve, and he wasn't positive if they had brought along enough Imperial prisoners and slaves to fulfill every need.

Moff Culter had come up with a rather ingenious plan for the gathering of blaster gas finally, and Moff Kuat had backed him up. When the Grand Moff had originally sent him on this mission into the maw he had attached a horrendously huge Cardon I Space Station along with his cargo carriers. The original plan was for it to be attached to the asteroid that the Maw Installation was based upon, and thus triple its existing space, and provide a base for his ground forces to field themselves out of. For now the space station just floated a few kilometers behind his starship, with nothing more than a skeleton crew keeping her afloat, until Culter had given him the idea for a plan that turned the Cardon into a large gas mining facility along the lines of Bespin's Cloud City.

When they had first scanned the gas giant behind them with life scan indicators they hadn't found the presence of any biological life of any sort. Tibanna gas is usually the by-product of large Beldons, which were nothing more than big bags of gas themselves. Their absence forewarned of nothing worthy of value ever being found in the gas giant's interior. A junior meteorologist onboard one of Kuat's orbital laboratories had continued to search through the high levels of hydrogen and helium and had come across a natural mix of other elements that formed a gas that was almost an exact twin of tibanna. Most of it could be found in the area behind the giant red-spotted storm that orbited the world. The Cardon I would have to have several safety features installed before it could brave the massive winds of the gas giant, but it was feasible. Yos had almost passed out when he heard the news, and was especially excited when he learned the gas only needed to go through a short spinning process before it would be able to be used by the blasters and turbolasers of the Fleet. Culter had some of the necessary equipment aboard several of his cargo transports. The very first sample of this new gas went into arming the probots now hurling into the inner system.

Oddly enough, they had the mining equipment to extract the gas, but no base to house all of the machinery. Extensive investigation showed that they would have to have a sealed base of some sort, as he didn't know of any species that could have survived in the toxic atmosphere of the fifth planet. That was when Kuat had suggested the use of the Cardon I as a base of operations. Culter had even suggested the use of a tribe of Ugnaughts that he had on one of his transports.

That had raised another problem as the Chief of the Ugnaught tribe had argued for his being's freedom as well as ten percent of the profits from the gas's sale after his tribe processed and spun it. Yos hadn't seen an issue with granting them freedom, as he had been considering doing the same thing for the slaves he had ordered out into the asteroid belt, but he hadn't planned on selling the blaster gas to anyone since he commanded every starship in the Fleet. After long negotiations with the Ugnaught Chieftain, it had finally been agreed that the Cardon I would sell gas to the three squadrons of the Moffs while Yos's Subterrel Squadron would receive their supply for free, in return for the Ugnaught's freedom. Culter and Kuat didn't seem to mind, but he had heard scuttlebutt that Seco had almost gone through the roof when he had heard about the arrangement. Rumors also abounded that the Ploo Moff was clamping down on and securing any precious metals and valuables he had onboard his own ships, especially after it had come to light that the slaves aboard his squadron's ships might be breaking into some of the more valuable stores and vaults amongst his transports. Yos had read a troubling top secret assessment, from Fleet Intelligence that the Imperial Credit Unit might be starting to lose its value amongst the Fleet; the longer it seemed they were to remain away from the Empire and the HoloNet, the worse it would become. All the more reason to get Tarkin's utopian society up and running as fast as possible, even if it was on the backs and sweat of the inhabitants of this system.

One of the space tugs was currently docked with the Cardon I as it was refueling and refitting next to the Carbon. The Admiral wanted to make sure its repulse lifts had plenty of fuel, and the Carbon's Commander had assured him that he could give the Cardon enough for two years at the moment. It would have to do, Yos thought as he glanced at another report. He noted that the Ugnaughts were also embarking from their transport towards the spacestation, as well as five hundred other newly freed slaves that had agreed to come along and man the mining facility. Yos had also ordered a full battalion of stormtroopers from his own squadron, aboard to protect his interest in the venture, and to provide internal security as well.

He had fought the urge to send Phasma along to keep her out of trouble, especially if there was an impending war on the horizon, but he knew his daughter would never forgive him for making her sit it out on the sidelines. She currently was taking an acceptance exam for the academy he was setting up. She was aboard one of the Moff Kuat's orbital laboratories and wouldn't be back until tomorrow. He had felt guilty for punishing her, but the fear he had felt at her disappearance let him know how he couldn't bear to lose her. He thought of Phasma's mother and wondered if she had ever acted in such a manner. Phasma's birthday was in a few weeks and he had already thought of the perfect gift to mend any broken bridges between them. When his mind stopped with his familial distraction, it came back to the Cardon I and the business of running a wounded Tarkin's Fist.

Wozz, the Ugnaught Chief, had guaranteed the first shipment of high grade blaster gas in one standard month. It was a relief to finally find the solution to one of the Fleet's most troubling problems, but as a pragmatic man the Fleet Admiral saw many more on the future's horizon.

The present was foremost on his mind at the moment. "How much longer do you think?" He asked the junior intelligence man. The officer's superior Commander Yutu was at his own station a few decks below in Signal Interception. Normally it would have been Yutu reporting to him.

"The first two should reach the fourth planet tonight, followed by the probes sent to the third in two days. The last two shouldn't reach the innermost planet for almost four days." Yos already knew the answer, but the stress of waiting was starting to get on his nerves. He signaled the naval steward nearby for a cup of Manellan Jasper tea to sooth his stressed anxieties.

Tarkin's Fist had dispatched sixteen Viper probe droids for missions within the inner rim of the system. They had been paired for the three planets that seemed to bear no life forms and a full squad of ten of the droids had been sent to the third planet, the one that had been sending out so many signals for the lads in CommScan and SigInt to intercept. One of the probots had been lost when it had smashed into an asteroid on its way through the belt, luckily it had been one of the ones sent to the third planet so there had been some room for error in that particular reconnaissance mission.

The situation had been quite revealing when he had taken a meeting with Commander Yutu a few days before. The Chief of Intelligence for his fleet had laid out what they were dealing with. Yutu had determined from 2d signals and some few snippets of rudimentary 3d, that he had intercepted, that they were dealing with another bipedal human race. When Yutu had shown him the many images he had collected Yos had assumed from the variety of races that were present that these humans must have several colonies in the local sector at the very least. Yutu had informed him that they hadn't detected any so far, but they had been surprised by a few signals coming from the planet's solitary moon. The commander had assured him he was compiling extensive amounts of data about this new society of humans, and would be presenting as much as possible as his crimson-clad boys in intelligence came across it. Back home, COMPNOR would someday be excited to hear they found another race of beings to fit into their High Human Culture agenda, but Yos had told himself before leaving on this mission that he could never stomach reporting to the likes of those Imperial lackeys again.

The Viper droids were coming to the inner edge of the asteroid belt and started to split up towards their designated targets. "Tell me, Lieutenant, have you ever heard of the legend of the 'Far Outsiders' before?" He asked Lieutenant Knebler.

"They're supposed to be some sort of alien race from beyond the galactic disk, supposedly quite nasty, sir, but I had only thought that was a bedtime story meant to scare little younglings." The lieutenant responded as he checked the holoprojection against information on his datapad.

"So had I." Yos wondered. "So had I."

Yellowstone National Park, Smaller Continental Mass, Third Planet in local system

The Delta Force operator stopped for just a second to catch his breath. He had just sprinted from the ridge line two miles away, after making sure the National Guard soldiers from Colorado were ready and in place for their coordinated ambush.

The alien robot weapon was closing in on them quickly, according to a spotter in a firewatch tower that was using a land line to keep in touch with the rest of the unit that had been rushed into the area over the past few hours. The operator wished he could use his own commo, but the alien kept broadcasting on its own more powerful transmitters and unfortunately that was causing communication problems over a three state area.

His Special Forces team sat on the opposite side of a large open meadow that had been, until a few hours ago, used only by a local herd of horses. The animals were now hiding in the woods somewhere off to his rear. He crouched in his position and waited for the target to make an appearance. He tried to recall everything he had learned about it on his trip here aboard an old V-22 Osprey, and had decided that it wasn't much. The alien machines had landed in about nine different places around the globe and had headed for power and military installations wherever they could find them.

According to reports from Mexico City these things required a lot of firepower to take them down. They seemed to shrug off any small arm's fire you threw at them. He clutched the grip of his TDI Vector SMG a little tighter. He had been briefed that the regular NAU army units down there had used a few Leopard 3 main battle tanks to finally take their alien robot out. His own team had been rushed into Yellowstone way too fast for anything that heavy to come along with them. After the carnage this thing had left with the Idaho Falls police force, he wished they had more time to pack along some heavy artillery.

"LT, we've got movement." One of his team's snipers informed him. The man was peering through the telescopic sight of his Barrett M82A3 rifle. The operator watched as the spider-like machine emerged from the treeline and floated across the meadow. As far as he could see it didn't seem to have any means of propulsion that was keeping it afloat. For a tiny second it reminded him of a jelly fish like the ones he had seen growing up on the coast of southern Upper California.

"4000 yards." The spotter announced the range. "We have a shot."

"Don't fire, wait till the Guard engages." He ordered. It seemed like an eternity as the robot glided towards his own position, and he silently prayed that the Colorado men didn't fire too early.

Right on cue the National Guard opened up with their M307 machineguns, and LWRC squad automatic weapons. He clinched his dragon skin body armor tighter as he watched the rounds from the Guard bounce off of the alien intruder. What he thought was its head spun around and returned what he couldn't believe were actual laser beams at the Guard troops. Several explosions rocked the position on the other side of the meadow.

"Now! Move! Move! Move!" he screamed as he led three two man teams out of the thick forest. Every other man carried with him a SMAW or a shoulder-launched multipurpose assault weapon. His great-grandfather would have called them bazookas. The teams closed the distance in seconds, but the machine was already reacting.

It opened up on the team on his left at a distance of only two hundred meters and blew both men to a bloody pink spray before they even knew they were under fire. "Fire!" he screamed, as the teams stopped to aim their weapons. He sent off a spray from his own gun to distract the alien for just a second longer. Two high explosive dual purpose rounds from the remaining SMAWs raced at the robot while the machine cut down the second team an instant after they fired.

It ducked the first round, but the second caught it directly in what he thought were its legs. The machine lurched for a second and then aimed at the three men still remaining in the field. This was it, he thought. There was no way they could reload and get another round off before it wiped them out.

The machine seemed to look at them for just a minor second before internal explosions ripped it to a thousand shreds. A piece of fiery shrapnel caught him in the arm, but he hardly noticed the impact, as he stared at the fireball and crashing wreckage before him.

"LT, we did it!" one of his men screamed. "We kicked ET's butt."

He looked at the burning carnage in front of him in stony disbelief. "Did we?"