Star Wars –
The Long haul
Forward…
Along time ago in a galaxy far, far away…
The empire had fallen, the remainder of the imperial navy scattered to the four winds.
Grand moffs split into factions all with the goal of rebuilding the empire in their own image.
Which inevitably led to all out war amongst the factions.
Some of the others becoming little more the war lords, it was a time of chaos.
Meanwhile, the newly birthed republic, struggled finding its own foot hold.
Undercover scouts were used as their eyes and ears in the outer regions of known space.
And to report back on what was left of the empire.
Chapter one
The Astex.
The Astex was an aging Corellian YV-929 armed freighter.
As she powered her way through the inner solar system, her destination was the farming world of Juptla IV.
She had 150 tones of farming equipment for the farming union.
"Astex to Juptla union station requesting permission to land." Captain Melissa Coal said into the com system.
"Astex, this is J.U.S, permission granted, land at docking pad alpha 4."
"Roger, Alpha 4 confirmed."
Mel turned to her droid R7 D1, "R7 while I'm dealing with customs, run a full diagnostics on the engines, them seem a big sluggish."
The droid acknowledge the order.
As the Astex touched down, an Immigration and customs officer stood waiting with two old b2 battle droids.
They may have been old, but still fairly deadly if the need arose.
"Captain good to see you again, how was the run?"
"As per normal Janus, uneventful, just how I like it." Mel quipped.
The two had become friends over the years which Mel had been doing the Juptla run.
"Did you get all we ordered?"
"Yeah it all worked out fine, just a delay picking up the Orville g600, held up on route. Caspins brother's 'new' freighter's engines failed."
"They still paying for cheap ships, and expecting quality?"
"You know it Janus."
"Maybe they'll learn one of these days."
"Well she's all yours while you unload her, if you need anything…"
"You'll be in Hadley Hope cantina." Janus completed her sentence, knowing damn well she was going to catch up with Cathka one of the servers.
"Thanks Janus you're a legend!" Said replied waving cheerfully at the three of them.
Before turning towards the cantina entrance, this was through a pair of heavy blaster doors.
Once inside the entrance of the complex, Mel made her way past the shops and trading markets.
Descending down the wide set of stair, which lead to the underground Cantina.
Either side of the entrance were a pair of chunky KX security droids.
They'd been reprogrammed by Cathka, who Mel was here to see.
"Hello boys!" She called out to the droids, "Long time no see."
One of the droids cocked his head slightly to one side.
"Hello Mel." It said, its voice seemed somewhat board.
Continuing to walk into the Cantina, Mel could see Cathka behind the bar in an animated argument with someone.
"…and I don't care what or who you're 'boss' is. He'll not getting another credit off me." Cathka snarled.
"Are you sure that's a wise move?" the cloaked human spoke, with malice dripping of every word.
"P4 escort this 'being' out of my Cantina."
One of the two security droids marched over toward them; "The mistress wishes you to leave."
"I know the way." He spat before turning on his heals, heading for the door, with the droid following closely behind him.
As the two left, Cathka's face lit up as she saw her friend.
Cathka was a Farghul, Mel had met her ten years ago now, when she first visited the world.
The two had hit it off almost immediately.
"Has he been bothering you Cathka?"
"Nothing I can't handle." The feline female replied with a chuckle.
"You're normal."
"You know me too well…" Sighed Mel happily.
Later on that evening…
The Cantina had been busy all night; pilots were enjoying time off.
Dockhands were getting drunk complaining about pay and quality of employment and anything else they could think of.
Both Mel and Cathka, who'd finished her shift an hour hence, were sharing a drink or two in a small alcove.
"You know what I think…" Mel slurred.
"You need another drink?" Cathka giggled as she poured more of the purple liquid into both their shot glasses.
"...well it would beee rude not too." Mel replied as she took a sip from the glass.
The sound of powerful engines caught the attention of all within the Cantina; the engines had a distinctive roar of the Z-95 head hunters.
The sound of incoming blasts erupted from outside, shock waves rippled through the floor, followed by a large series of explosions.
The ports own defences opened up, answering the incoming attack.
Only to be silenced a moment later rapid detonations caused by incoming ordnance striking the buildings.
A sudden blinding flash, followed by an earth wrenching eruption of dirt, fire and debris rained down around Cathka and Mel.
A short time later…
Mel found her self under rubble, trapped and try as she might she couldn't free her self.
All around her were the sounds of moans, calls for help and the muffled sounds of rubble being removed.
Mel's head hurt, white hot pain flashed through her right side arm and leg.
Darkness called to her, as she passed out, wondering if this was it?
Mel woke up not knowing where she was the first time, she heard voices, and she thought she recognised one of them.
She seemed to be floating, or flying, was she dead?
The second time she awoke, she opened her eyes to see she was in a liquid, with people on the outside looking in towards her, she turned her head, which still hurt and look towards her right arm, which was missing.
On the third time she awoke, she was in a medical unit's bed, with a medical droid next to her.
"How do you feel?" the MD-5 medical droid enquired in a soothing voice.
"I feel weak, my arm feels…."
Her voice trailed off as her mind flashed back to the previous time she woke up.
"I am afraid we had to replace both your right arm and leg, as they were too badly crushed to repair." The droid continued to inform her, with its soothing voice.
"Oh…"
"You're new right arm and leg, are in fact cybernetic replacements.
Using synth-flesh they are quite indistinguishable from the rest of your body, if I may add."
"How long have I been here?" Mel winced as she waited for the answer.
"Three months, four days."
"Cathka is she?"
"Cathka recovered quite a bit sooner then you. It was fortunately her injuries were not as survive."
Mel's eyes started to grow heavy, as once again darkness claimed her.
A week later, both Mel, and Cathka were housed in a hidden apartment, normally used by smugglers.
Mel was getting use to the replacement appendages, and the news the Astex had been destroyed in the attack, had hit here like a ton of rocks, she'd lost everything.
One of the attack craft, had targeted it scoring a direct hit, and without its shielding it had erupted into flames, throwing debris everywhere.
She lost her ship, her lively hood, everything in this damn forsaken place, but she had her life.
Cathka had lost her Cantina, but she had a plan, now Mel was fully healed it was time to start explaining.
"Mel, I have something to tell you."
Mel looked towards her friend; she could see Cathka was unsettled.
"What wrong Cathka?"
"I am part of the Republic's scouts, and it was because of me, that you lost your ship and you're…." Her voice wavered before it trailed off.
"You can't be responsible for…"
"Let me finish Mel, the being you saw me argue with, he'd discovered the truth about me, and wanted hush credits. At first it was a small amount here and there, but when he came in last, he wanted to triple the amount. Said that imperial loyalist had been looking for a republic spy, they'd pay good credits for information. I thought it was just bull, I took a gamble, and lost."
For what seemed like a long time, Mel said nothing.
Inside her body, a welling coldness seemed to be crushing her lungs.
Closing her eyes for a moment she spoke, softly.
"I was not the only one to lose, "she struggled for the correct word, before settling with the word "things."
"But you lost your arm and leg…." Cathka's voice cracked as a tear feel down her furry check.
"And now I have these, true they've taken a bit to get use too." She paused before continuing. "However the main thing I lost was the Astex, my home, my business."
"I may be able to help with that," she paused for a second looking unsure with herself before she spoke again. "Mel I want you to join me in the Republic. I have something to show you in the hanger bay."
"Hanger bay, where are we?"
"In a republic hidden base, more than that I can't say unless, you decide to join the cause."
"No pressure then." Mel sighed as the two left the room, heading towards the hanger bay.
Sometime later.
The hanger bay was carved out of the bed rock; the cave was large enough to fit three medium sized craft. At the far end an impressive set of blast doors, sealed.
Within the bay were two craft, one was an aging (Aggressive Reconnaissance 170 star fighter) simplified to an A.R.C 170 star fighter from the days of the clone wars. The craft had been heavily modified, but had an aggressive profile.
The other was a small shuttle, buzzing around the A.R.C was a R3 droid, and the two K.X. security droids.
"Welcome to my parlour, this is my own ARC 170. I or should I say we found her not far from here, buried in a swamp. Only her tail was poking out just above the muck. It took three weeks, to dig her out, and a week to move her into the hanger. That's when the hard work started."
"You did that all by yourself?" Mel asked in disbelief.
Chathka laughed; "By myself I may be resourceful, but no, when I was first stationed here the republic had already started building this installation. It turned out this planet was the location of a skirmish during clone wars. And so we did some investigating to see if we could find anything to salvage. When the star fighter was discovered, the occupants were entombed, including the R3 droid you see over there. Now the R3 droid I am pretty proud of, I modified the droid and brought him back to working order."
"Wow that's, impressive"
"I've always have been a little too good at splicing computers, not to mention repairing and reprogramming droids. So when we found him, I convinced the engineers to leave him to me. The rest as they say is history. Now we can fly it with just pilot and gunner, as well as R3."
"And that's why we're here?"
"Yep the installation's a bust, we're leaving and the installation itself will be decommissioned."
"Does this happen often?"
"R3 prep the ship for departure."
The droid made its way over to the Arc, on the side of the fuselage was her name, 'Liberator.'
"Not as often as it use to in combat against the Imps. Suite up, you're piloting I've got the weapons systems on the Liberator."
As the Liberator dusted off from the hanger bay klaxon sounded, and R3 feed through a warning three imperial light cruisers had jumped into the system.
"We're not fighting the imps are we?" Mel asked; panic slightly playing in her voice.
"Settle down Mel, plot an escape vector and leave the rest to R3 and me."
As the Liberator broke orbit, she could see other freighters, and smaller craft trying to escape.
"This is Commander Rexus, stand down and prepare to be inspected."
Some of the craft slowed down, as ordered, others like the Liberator jumped away.
The Liberator handled like a dream, it was so nimble, a complete different beast to her previous vessel, the Astex.
"Cathka, this is a dream to fly."
"It is, however needs two plus a droid to fly her with these upgrades. In the clone wars, the Arc needed a crew of three. She still will lose out to an X wing, but only by a Bantha's hair."
An alarm brought Mel's attention immediately towards the flashing indicator, a report from R3 indicated that the FTL systems needed to be shut down and rebooted immediately.
"Crap, hold on." Mel snapped, before easing the Liberator out from lightspeed.
As one problem resolved itself, a new one in the shape of an imperial corvette appeared.
"Mel's, that's a Raider II corvette!" Cathka snarled.
"I know, I know, but it was either drop out of light speed of become little more then atoms, besides….."
"Besides what Mel!"
"Give me a moment will ya, as I thought, its cold, vented to space, all airlocks open. No power, no life signs, in a word dead."
As the powerful scanners of the Liberator displayed the final battle between what was left of the six TIE fighters and the Corvette.
The Corvette had not come out of the battle unscathed, but none of the damaged would have lent itself to the condition of what was before them.
"What happened here?" Cathka whispered.
"I have no idea, but from what I recall weren't these things on the same side? However, I seem to remember that these types of Corvette were used by special ops. It may be worth taking a closer look." Mel mused to her self.
"How close?" Cathka had a bad feeling about this.
The Liberator eased its way closer to the derelict Corvette.
"The docking bay doors are open and the hanger is empty, we could land?"
"Are you out of your mind Mel? There could be heaven knows what on that thing?"
"Including commodities we could sell on, it's dead Cathka, been drifting out here for god know how long."
"Yeah but why were TIE's attacking an Imp Corvette?"
"There's only on way we're going to find that out."
"I suppose, but if this goes wrong….."
"Trust me, this isn't my first derelict Imp ship I've boarded you know, it'll be fine."
The Liberator eased its way towards the corvette passed what was left of the TIE's.