Agen's Light, Corellian Engineering Corporation YT-2000 stock light-freighter, Sol System
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Brakatak rushed into the Agen Light's cockpit. On his heels were his friends Frip and Ashla. Rana was working frantically at the controls of the vessel, trying to avoid their unseen pursuers.
A metallic thud came from the starboard side of the starship as the docking clamps that had held the Agen's Light to the captured Gizer L-6 were released.
"Thank the Force, we're free at last." Rana exclaimed as she transferred power to the sublight drive. The ship pitched into a downward maneuver before flipping rapidly onto her back. Rana narrowly dodged a trio of small asteroids that had been in their path.
"What's going on?" Brakatak asked as he slipped into the co-pilot's chair.
"Get the shields up. Full power to the rear deflector shields." Rana ordered.
Brakatak followed the order without hesitation. "Rear deflectors up. Why not the forward shields? We are in an asteroid field."
Rana directed the starship into an evasive twist as a blaster bolt raced ahead of the cockpit. The bolt streaked through the place where the Agen's Light had just been. Rana spun the Corellian freighter in a quick hundred and eighty degree turn. "Because of that."
Now ahead of them was a YV-929 armed heavy freighter. Its stronger shields allowed it to plow its way through the lighter field of asteroids near to the exit route miners had carved through the Phasma Belt.
"Our blasters won't do much against their shields and the ion cannon won't be recharged for another thirty minutes. We're going to have to outrun her." Ashla said.
"There's no way it can keep up with the Light. Looks like they're trying to cut us off from Mars and drive us rimward." Rana said.
"Well that guarantees it's not an Imperial vessel. They'd want to keep us from leaving the system. I bet it's the Ugnaught's Chief come out here to protect his payment." Ashla said. "He's turning us back towards Earth 5."
"He's a few starships short of a fleet if he thinks he'll catch us with that poodoo barge. Rana, haul jets out of here. We'll lose them in the thicker stretches of the belt." Brakatak said.
"Wait, the freighter's skin alive is." Frip exclaimed pointing his scaly finger out the viewport.
Rana put the Light completely on her vertical axis as the Duro pilot narrowly squeezed their way through two heavy plasma bolts. Everyone leaned closer to the forward viewport to get a better glimpse at their pursuer. Across the hull of the YV-929 large, winged machines were moving into their launch positions, giving the freighter's hull the appearance of a transforming hide.
"Vulture droids!" Ashla and Rana exclaimed together.
"Fierfek." Brakatak squinted all three of his eyes at the heavy freighter. Just as he made out the distinctive shape of one of the moving objects on her hull the droid attack craft launched into the void. They formed up into three groups of four and drove straight into the asteroid belt after the Agen's Light. "There are at least a dozen of them. Can you outrun them?"
"I don't know. In a straight run our sublight engines might be the fastest things in this sector but they'll be on us in a few minutes if I have to maneuver around every other rock and piece of junk out here." Rana said.
"You do. I'll help out but we need you two on the tri-cannons." Ashla ordered as she shoved Brakatak out of the co-pilot's chair.
Brakatak gave it to her without a thought. He smacked Frip in the chest to get his attention. "Come on they're not paying us to stand around."
"We is paid?" Frip asked as he backed out of the cockpit, still watching the approaching Vultures as they closed with the Light. Rana swept the Corellian freighter's nose upwards and away from their hunters. The droid fighters vanished from their forward view as she turned the craft away from them.
Brakatak turned and sprinted down the cockpit access corridor with Frip hot on his heels.
Brakatak skidded to a halt in the ship's main hold. The room was full of the newly freed slaves from the Gizer L-6. The group had declared themselves to be some sort of missionary cult group or something from Earth but Brakatak hadn't had time to dig too deeply into that claim.
He pushed his way through the crowd, which rapidly made way for the alien barging through them. As he ran he noticed Ashlei and Keatly bandaging Jason Bogan with the ship's emergency medpac.
The two Utais in his crew urgently squeaked something in their language when Brakatak appeared. They had been trying to settle the former slaves into seats around the hold where they would be out of the crew's way. Instead the near-humans were wandering around and inspecting everything. Several of them, including their leader, Father George, were attempting to help the Firrerreo girls give medical aid to Jason. Jason's arm was slathered in kolto and Keatly was attempting to wrap a grav-press bandage around the wound.
"Erw, Raf, get on the engines. We're dead beings if the sublight drives give out." As if to emphasize the seriousness of the situation the Agen's Light gave a shudder as it shook off another asteroid hit.
The small delay gave Frip the chance to race ahead of Brakatak and reach the tri-laser access tube first. Frip put his hands on the side of the half-circle ladder and kept his feet away from the rungs as he slid down into the ventral cannon position.
Brakatak hit the ladder just as Frip's head cleared the tube. Breathing heavily with the anxiety of the situation, Brakatak hurriedly climbed up into the dorsal cannon turret.
It was a tight fit for the over-sized Gran. He had to squeeze between the controls for the AG-2G Tri-laser cannon and the turret seat. He powered up the cannon. Knowing that it would take a minute before the weapon would be primed and ready, he reached under the seat for the adjustment knob, figuring one of the smaller Firrerreos or maybe Jason had been in the seat last. He positioned the turret's comlink headset over his right ear and mouth.
Once the seat was in a more comfortable position he swiveled the turret back in forth in its sponson. When he rotated towards the stern he spotted the onrushing cloud of asteroids ahead. Rana raced for a thicker field of rocks in hopes of losing their pursuers there. He rotated to the aft and the targeting computer instantly identified the twelve Vulture droids that were quickly closing with the Agen's Light. Their engines were blue glows against the bleakness of the Big Isn't.
Brakatak was surprised that any of them had made it through the 'big jump'. Once the main stay of the Separatist Fleet during the Clone Wars, the Vultures had largely disappeared from the Home Galaxy after the Imperial victory. In the decade since the war they were only used out in the remotest of Outer Rim systems or the occasional pirate gang.
"Call out those fighters." Ashla said over the comlink.
"Five o'clock high bandits is." Frip hooted as a stream of red laser blasts emerged from the underside of the hull. The Vulture droids easily dodged the incoming blasts as they plunged into the thicker belt right behind the Agen's Light.
"Hold your blasts until the tinnies are closer, Fish-face." Brakatak yelled back down the tunnel.
The Light turned into the asteroid storm and as Rana completed her turn asteroids of all shapes and sizes came straight for Brakatak's turret viewports.
A mountain-sized boulder tumbled into the Light's path at top speed. Several smaller meteorites crashed into the small planetoid, where they created rippling explosions along its surface. Other asteroids of all sizes collided and shattered, sending more debris into their flight path. Brakatak prayed to Gran gods he hadn't thought of in years that the Agen's Light's shields would hold.
The Agen's Light veered around the big asteroid and raced through the rain of fist-sized rocks, followed by the first flight of four Vultures, which frantically bobbed and weaved around the asteroids.
One of the pursuing droids connected with an hovertank-sized asteroid and exploded. The other fighters were pelted with a steady stream of smaller explosions caused by their unlucky brethren.
Two huge asteroids tumbled toward the Agen's Light and Rana quickly banked the light freighter around both of them. Eleven Vultures still followed in hot pursuit until one of the droid fighters scraped an asteroid and tumbled out of control into deep space. Its fiery death stung Brakatak's eyes for a moment.
Asteroids raced by the turret viewport as Rana and Ashla piloted the herd's trusty craft through the dangerous field. Looking out the viewport Brakatak watched in terror as a large chunk of nickle-iron alloy dropped past the viewport, narrowly missing their starship.
Frip hooted and whistled across the comlink in horror as a slightly smaller asteroid came especially close, too close, and bounced off the Light with a loud, scrapping crunch.
"C'mon Rana. You're the best pilot in the system but none of us want to be around when you make a mistake." Brakatak said.
"We're going to get pulverized out here." Ashla said, worry filling her voice.
"I'm not going to argue with that." Rana said.
"Pulverized?" Frip whistled in alarm.
"I'm going in closer to one of the big ones." Rana said.
"Closer?" Brakatak exclaimed, sure that the Duro pilot had lost her mind.
The Agen's Light dove toward the surface of one of the moon-sized asteroids. There was a constant silent chaos of pin wheeling and shattering rocks against the starry void as smaller asteroids collided with larger chunks of rock. Two of the remaining ten fighters followed the Light to the large planetoid while the others held back. The Agen's Light skimmed the surface of the planetoid as small asteroids impacted and crumpled against the ship's shields.
The pair of Vultures on their tail approached the Light as she dove towards a narrow canyon that ran between two impact craters. Just as they moved into a blasting position a giant asteroid hurtled directly into their path. Rana hit the afterburner and dove the ship for the planetoid's surface. The Light squeezed through the narrow space between the asteroid and planetoid with only centimeters to spare. When the asteroid passed Brakatak saw that it had left the demolished remains of the two persistant Vultures tumbling back into the Void.
"The other two groups of Vultures are circling around this rock. They're aiming to cut us off from the system core." Ashla said across the comlink. The copilot's chair gave her the best view of the ship's subspace radar so Brakatak wasn't about to argue. Well that and who better to know than a Jedi.
"They'll be on us again in a minute or two."
Brakatak scanned back and forth across the asteroid field as they continued to skim the surface of the larger rock. They were close to the rimward side of the Phasma Belt at the moment. He turned his eyestalks to a bright, beige object that shone against the starry bleakness of the Milky Way.
"Hey, Rana, can we make a run for Earth 5? We can lose these flying tinnies in her atmosphere." Brakatak suggested.
"Fierfek. It's worth a shot." Rana replied. The Agen's Light pulled away from the large asteroid and streaked towards the largest planet in the local system, what the earthlings called Jupiter. Brakatak could hear the increased whine of the reactor as Rana pushed the sublight drives hard. Twenty seconds later they were weaving their way through the last of the rimward asteroids in the field.
"They be on us." Frip hooted.
Brakatak turned his turret to the aft of the ship. Sure enough, eight engine exhausts could be seen coming around the horizon of the large asteroid they had just left. The fighters were still grouped in flights of four and as Brakatak watched it became obvious that at least one of the flights would intercept them long before they reached the assumed safety of Earth 5's storm-ridden atmosphere.
Brakatak keyed his comlink to talk to Frip, "Come on, buddy, we're not out of this yet!"
"Me ready is. You ready, tri-clops? Sharp stay." Frip replied.
Brakatak scanned the digitized readouts on the targeting computer and reached for the controls. He placed both thumbs over the tri-cannon's blasting stubs.
"Here they come!" Ashla warned.
The second flight of four droids moved towards the Agen's Light, two each veered off to the port and starboard of the Corellian freighter. The stars whipped by the big Gran as he adjusted his targetting joystick.
The first Vulture droid raced past the Light, blasting plasma bolts as it went by. Inside Brakatak's turret the freighter's bulkheads bounced and vibrated from the impacts, causing the power to cut out for a second before returning.
Another Vulture maneuvered in front of Brakatak, who kept all three eyes focused on it as he blasted at it with the tri-laser cannon. Frip did likewise from under the ship as the fighter streaked into the Ishi Tibs view. The Light bounced slightly again from a minor hit.
Two Vultures dove down towards the stock-light freighter. Brak heard Frip blasting away at another unseen fighter. Brakatak felt sweat start to run along his skin as fear and anxiety rushed through his veins.
"Come too fast they are!" Frip yells. Two of the fighters charged directly out of six o'clock high, plasma bolts streaking from both craft. The Agen's Light shuddered as a laser bolt hit very close to the cockpit. Brak heard Ashla mumble something across the comlink but couldn't make it out. He hoped it wasn't important.
"We've lost lateral controls!" Rana yelled.
"E chu ta. Please hold together girl." Brakatak whispered to the silent hull next to him. An enemy laser bolt hit the turret, causing a shower of sparks to rain down on Brakatak. "You hear me, baby? Hold together."
His targeting computer showed that Frip was tracking a target below him. Frip swiveled his cannon mount as he followed a Vulture with his tri-laser. Brakatak aimed his own cannon on the spot where the fighter should emerge from under the hull. A Vulture suddenly flashed by in front of the starship.
Frip blasted at the fighter while Brakatak unleashed a stream of laser bolts towards the target. He connected and the fighter exploded into fiery dust.
Brakatak laughed victoriously. Two more Vultures passed over the Agen's Light's top deck and unleashed a barrage of plasma bolts at the ship. The third fighter moved in from underneath and Frip turned his cannon on it and scored a spectacular direct hit.
"Got him! Got him I did!"
Brakatak turned in his seat and gave his friend a victory wave across the tunnel, which Frip gleefully returned. "Great, Fishy. Don't get cocky."
Brakatak turned back to his laser cannon. Two more Vultures crossed in front of the freighter.
"There's still two more of them out there." Ashla said.
A Vulture moved up over the freighter again and blasted plasma bolts into their shields.
Brakatak glared at his projected target screen. An ex-separatist fighter crossed his port side and Brakatak followed it with blasts from his laser cannon. The Vulture zoomed toward the Light, blasting destructive bolts at it as it dove in for the kill. The pirate ship bounced slightly as it was struck by the enemy bolts.
Frip blasted a laser bolt into another approaching droid fighter, which caused it to burst into a cataclysmic explosion. The rear deflectors glowed green as pieces of the destroyed droid vaporized against the energy shield.
The last surviving Vulture of the second flight bored in, blasting upon the Agen's Light.
Brakatak swiveled behind his cannon, his aim describing the arc of the droid fighter. The fighter came closer, firing at the stock-light freighter, but a well-aimed blast from Brakatak's laser cannon tore into the attacker, which blew up in a small atomic shower of burning fragments.
"Yee-hah!" Brakatak yelled.
"We're not out of it yet. We've still got that last group closing on us." Ashla said.
Brakatak traversed his turret to the stern. Earth 5 loomed large in his viewport. The atmosphere of the gas giant was banded with thousands of murderous storms, the largest of which was a giant red spot in the planet's southern hemisphere. "Will we make it?"
"We'll beat them there but we won't last long in those corrosive storms." Rana said.
"That Cardon Space Station the Ugnauts are using for a tibanna mining facility is floating in that huge storm's wake. It's the only safe place on the whole stang world." Ashla said.
"Head for that. Rana try to lose them in the clutter of all that refining equipment." Brakatak ordered.
"Sounds good enough for me." The Duro responded. The ship gave a slight shudder as she skimmed the upper magnetosphere of the gas giant. The Agen's Light kept her shields at full power to allow her sublights to continue at full speed inside an atmosphere.
"Follow us they are." Frip hooted a warning. Brakatak spun his turret around. Sure enough, the last flight of droid fighters dove through the upper layers of ammonia clouds after the Agen's Light.
Ammonia crystals beaded up on the viewport as Rana banked into a storm cloud in an effort to lose their pursuers. Powerful winds buffeted the ship nonstop, causing it to vibrate. Brakatak's viewport went from light to dark to light again as Rana flashed through one cloud bank after another. He caught occasional glimpses of the droid fighters in their wake but not enough to get a target lock on.
The starship plunged into darkness one more time before emerging into a sun-drenched stretch of open sky that reminded Brakatak of the eye of a hurricane he had once been through as a youngling on Kinyen. On the other side of the open space rested the giant tibanna gas mining facility. Artificial glowlamps shone from thousands of viewports along the city's durasteel hull.
The Cardan Space Station had been dragged along by the Subterrel Sector Fleet during the 'big jump' almost three years ago. Seeing no use for the station the then Fleet Admiral Yos had deeded the station to a tribe of Ugnaughts and another five hundred former slaves as a tibanna mining facility. With the war on Earth going on the price of tibanna had hyperjumped through the Outer Rim. The Ugnaughts had used their newfound wealth to transform the station into a small city amongst the clouds.
"Looks like something you'd find on Faargau or out on Bespin back home." Rana said.
The four Vultures emerged suddenly from the cloud bank behind them. Brakatak unleashed a stream of laser bolts but at that distance the droids easily evaded them.
"Look at the top superstructure. It's still undergoing a lot of construction. We might be able to lose them in there." Ashla said. Brakatak didn't have time to spin his chair forward again without losing sight of the four fighters to their rear. He just hoped the Jedi knew what she was talking about.
A pair of Storm IV twin-pod cloud cars raced towards them from the city on an intercept course. Rana banked the Agen's Light away from the new pursuers and put some distance between themselves and the slower atmospheric airspeeders.
The Corellian freighter flashed across the surface of the city, dodging several reinforced buildings and large pieces of refining equipment to reach the unfinished portion of the mining facility. The cloud cars and remaining Vultures were right on their tail. Brakatak blasted off a few poorly aimed bolts at the attackers in an effort to discourage them from closing too fast.
"There." Rana yelled.
Brakatak spun his chair forward again to see what she was indicating. An immense hole lay on the surface of the construction zone like a gaping maw.
"Here goes nothing." She said.
Rana flipped the Light upside down and dove into the superstructure of the giant mining facility. The cloud cars stopped their pursuit at the edge of the hole but the four droid fighters dove in after Brakatak and his pirates.
The Agen's Light led the chase through the ever-narrowing shaft. Glow lamps reflected off of Brakatak's face as he watched red and gray pipes and electrical conduits flash by at a distance of what he guessed was only a meter or two from his turret. He wasn't sure if his heart was still beating, he was so full of fear at that moment. One mistake would cost them all their lives.
"Stay alert. We could run out of space real fast." He said.
The Light and the Vultures raced through the tunnel. As they spun into a turn Frip unleashed a volley that connected with one of the Vultures, causing it to impact with the sides of the tunnel. The stricken Vulture richocheted off several walls and machinery before exploding in a fiery cloud in the middle of the tunnel. The other three Vultures streaked through the debris without losing a beat.
Brakatak swiveled his chair forward. All he could do was watch as Rana turned the freighter onto her side to squeeze through a vertical passageway in the main tunnel. It narrowed for a second and the Light scraped the side dangerously. The impact sounded as if the Force had smacked the Agen's Light with a giant sledgehammer. The two leading droid fighters continued to blast away at them.
"That was close." Rana admitted.
Brakatak nodded silently in agreement. He looked to where the subspace radar dish used to be mounted on the hull and noted that the sensor had been flattened in the impact.
They made another sharp turn down an auxiliary tunnel. One of the Vultures took the turn too wide and scratched a massive gas pipeline, knocking off one of its stabilizers. The droid spun wildly before it slammed into a low hung gantry and exploded.
Brakatak blazed away at the remaining two pursuers. Bolts emerging from the underside of the hull told him that Frip was doing the same. Brakatak tried to put thoughts of a fiery crash aside as he concentrated on the droid fighters. The Vultures ducked and weaved through the tunnel just behind the Agen's Light. Their speed and the confines of the passageway never allowed either side to get more than a second or two to aim at the other.
Suddenly they emerged into a huge empty area in the center of the space station. Brakatak risked a glance to the side and spotted a towering reactor that provided power for the city and mining facility. He thought about strafing the vulnerable power source for a second but he wasn't sure if the Agen's Light would escape the resulting explosion in time. And even if they did the Imperial Navy would place a target the size of the Death Star on his back for knocking out their only source of ammo. Plus, he didn't know how he could live with himself if he inadvertently murdered the hundreds of innocent miners who lived in the cloud city.
He kept his cannons aimed on the two droids, which emerged from the tunnel right on their tail.
Rana dove into another tunnel on the far side of the chamber and Brakatak hoped this was an exit that led back to the surface. He didn't know how much longer he could handle the claustrophobic confines of the tunnels.
The new tunnel was full of pipes and conduits just like the last except Brakatak noticed there were more out-venting steam and so were probably full of fresh tibanna. His suspicion was confirmed a second later when one of the remaining droids slammed into a raised tube in the tunnel floor, rupturing the pipe and causing an explosion that raced along the walls of the tunnel.
Rana maneuvered the Agen's Light through the winding infrastructure of the facility, staying just ahead of the continuous chain of explosions. The last remaining Vulture was hard on their tail.
Brakatak watched helplessly as the explosions came closer and closer to their aft hull. He didn't think they were going to make it.
Rana made one last turn and suddenly there was an opening ahead, bright with sunlight.
The explosions were almost upon them. The last Vulture was swallowed up by the onrushing wall of plasma and fire, but its death was insignificant in the larger fireball.
The Agen's Light rocketed out of the opening with the flames licking her aft plates.
They charged through the upper atmosphere of Earth 5 at top speed. Brakatak watched as the facility's cloud cars tried uselessly to react to their sudden exit. A thick plume of smoke and fire erupted from the tunnel but the cloud city held together.
"We're clear!" Brakatak yelled.
The comlink was filled with laughter and cheering. Brakatak could hear the other beings in the hold below cheering as well.
"Where to now, Bull?" Rana asked.
Brakatak felt honored at her inclusion of the Gran term of respect. Their first pirate raid had been a success. But he had more plans still in store for the crew of the Agen's Light.
"Put in a course for Culter City. Take us home."
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Just a change of disclaimer. I don't own Star Wars, and while many of my characters may be OC, Cody and Ashla Ti along with their universe are owned by Mickey Mouse. I'm just grateful they allow me to play in their Magic Kingdom
